Foraging - My Journey So Far
Born from a desire to be prepared…
…but gifting me something that I wish I had always known, regardless of need or not. Last year, when all the sh*t hit the fan, I massively felt the impact in terms of our ability to get the food we eat a lot of - literally 7-9 boxes of organic veg arrive at our door every week. Before 2020, if you had asked me, I would have said I was in control of almost every area of my life. Last year taught me otherwise, and it was not a feeling I enjoyed. Since then I have had three areas of focus, where I am working to ensure I am truly as in control as I can be: Food, Finances + Family. I will discuss these more over the coming weeks, in the little intros in my Heart to Heart weekly love notes to you all. (You can sign up here if you don’t already receive them.)
One way that we started to focus more on Food (my topic for today), was to completely redesign, and rebuild (a homeschooling project), our garden, to make it so we could grow as much of our own food as possible in it. (You can read more about this here, and follow my adventures with growing on Instagram.) Once I had mastered growing my veg (to a decent level - always things to learn!), my attention shifted to something else…
Foraging
I have always had an interest in foraging. It has always fascinated me. I used to LOVE watching River Cottage, and there was a guy on there called John Wright who Hugh used to go foraging with. However, apart from the odd dandelion leaf, nettles, and of course the familiar British pastime of blackberry picking, I had never explored the idea of finding food for free (mind you, I did own the book ‘Food for Free’ - even if I didn’t use it).
I was put into action this year seeing somebody on Instagram out foraging for Yarrow. I know how powerful Yarrow is as as plant, because of the essential oil I use a lot, Yarrow Pom (a blend of Yarrow essential oil with Pomegranate carrier oil, which is incredible for the skin!). I was intrigued to go + find my own, and was disappointed to not find any on the wild meadow directly outside my house. However, I got treated to a glimpse of it on the lawn of an air museum I was at with my Dad, early summer, and the excitement had me hooked to find more. Next up for me was Red Clover, which I could find on the meadow in front of my house (you can suck the nectar from it if the bees haven’t beaten you to it!).
Later in the summer I was guided towards learning more about Mugwort, and soon was spotting it literally anywhere! It makes the most delicious tea, and I have been blanching it + then freezing it to blend with frozen bananas for the most yummy ‘nice’ cream. It has so many wonderful health properties, especially during women’s bleed, and it is also supposed to give you some crazy dreams, but I haven’t had that experience as yet. (It is Mugwort you can see in the photo above.)
Josh + I got brave a month or so ago, identifying a mushroom on our lawn as a Fairy Ring Champignon + eating it (slightly scary but Josh was very confident, and he doesn’t take chances with things like that, so I sat in my Feminine, and surrendered in trust, and went with him!). Since then I have found an incredible woodland near me, with SO many mushrooms, including ceps. Below you can see the mushrooms I harvested + brought home to identify. I didn’t eat any, as I didn’t feel sure enough, plus there were definitely some poisonous ones amongst them, so I didn’t want to risk if they had been contaminated. When you are foraging, if you are bringing things home to identify, you should have a basket for things you are sure of, and one for those you are not sure of, just in case. I didn’t know I was going to find mushrooms on that walk, so didn't go prepared, but plan to return after the rains next week to explore again, this time prepared.
This week I have feasted on damsons, and nibbled on nettle seeds (so good for you!) when I have been out + about walking. Today I bought home rose hips + hawthorns, which I am excited to play with. Plantain is everywhere at the moment too, but I think the leaves are better when they are a bit younger, so that is something I plan to start to incorporate into salads a little earlier next year.
I am so in love with foraging
A few weeks ago I was reading the foreward to one of the many new foraging books I have bought, written by John Wright himself. He says:
“I am frequently told that going for a walk with me can be rather disconcerting. Except for the occasions when I offer my companion the odd leaf to chew upon, I appear to be strangely distracted and barely listening to what is being said to me. Well, I am - usually - listening; it is jus that I am doing something else as well - looking.”
I can already relate to these words from John. Anyone who walks with me now, has to listen to me constantly, excitedly pointing + saying “You can eat that!”. My one friend Chevonne delighted me with her clear trust for me, when everything I pointed to, she bent down, broke a bit off + ate (I was however a bit more conscious of being 100% sure once I recognised her enthusiasm + blind trust in me!). My friend Gabbie went home after a weekend with me, having learnt that cow parsley isn’t elderflower, but also with a love for Mugwort, which I absolutely loved. My friend Rania + I went on a wild Mugwort hunting adventure together (this is the photo shown as the main picture of this blog, from her car), and I dug up some Yarrow on the same trip to bring home to my garden.
I feel so right when I am out there: spying at, smelling, touching, munching. It has amazed me how quickly I have learnt to recognise plants + also remember where they are. As women of course, it is a primal instinct for us. We used to be gatherers, and as such we would have known where we could find all the plants we needed, at the different times of the year. Between you + me, I think this is actually why women tend to be better at remembering directions. We are tuned into observing our surroundings, all around us, and taking little details in. Men are tuned into focusing directly ahead, and propelling forward towards a target; hunting! Of course not many men can accept they aren’t great with directions, but thankfully Josh can, and so we have harmony in that space when we are in the car.
As humans we are designed to be connected to our surroundings, to nature, to the food that nature provides. Going out for a walk + slowly moving through the land, mindfully, looking around with calm purpose, is incredibly meditative. It is SO calming for the nervous system, I cannot tell you. It is SO natural! It is a forgotten part of who we are, but it is one that I am ready to fully remember, and I am committed to helping others do the same.
May we not be in a position to NEED this knowledge! Well, I say that, maybe it would be better if we were back in a position to NEED it, because I am not sure progress in many ways has done us many favours. However, whether we NEED it or not for our survival, I will, from my experience this year, go as far to say as many of us would massively benefit, for returning to our true selves, for our mental, emotional, spiritual health, that we should all do it. Easy access to organic veg boxes or not, returning to the land for me is now a necessity, and I hope you will explore it too.
