Joined: 08 Mar 2005 Posts: 568 Location: Nottingham
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 05 9:18 am Post subject: Foraging-where do I start?
I treated myself to the Collins pocket guide to mushrooms and toadstools yesterday after spending all of my afternoon in A&E having my wrist x-ray - nothing broken (yet, OH told me I could drive myself as I'd only hurt one arm and we have an automatic - I think I'm now single . Thats by the by.
Where do I start foraging? I'm worried about dog pee on stuff in the local park or shall I look around the allotment paths ( there are miles of them), they are mostly hedged with hawthorn or buckthorn. Other than mushrooms and the obvious blackberries what do I look out for at this time of year? are there ideal times of day too?
dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 7184 Location: South Kent
September article is also done and will be winging its way to Bugs this evening... Sorry I've been running late on those, real life intervening and giving me real things to do
Hils... Remind me, North of Nottingham City Centre?
Posted: Tue Sep 13, 05 10:08 am Post subject: Re: Foraging-where do I start?
Elderberries will be ripe most places, rosehips and haws as soon as the first frost hits you. Plums if your quick, rowan, apples and pears. Blaeberries, cowberries, crowberries and cloudberries. Acorns, sweet chestnuts, walnut, beech masts and hazel nuts are just around the corner to.
If the beech mast has good fat nuts in it (hard work getting them out, but if they seem fat give them a go) then you can either munch on them or extract the oil. Pleasant enough according to some, but the sheer hard work for such small nuts puts me off.
doh I'd not thought of looking at the top 10 wild foods!
Cab I'm in Sherwood (nowhere near the forest)!
Ahh, that's pretty central.
There are great pickings of mushrooms (or there used to be!) in the grounds of the old mental hospital in Mapperley (before anyone asks I used to work there). Wollaton Park has some wild areas full of interesting things. Slightly further afield there's the University campus, which I used to find I could practically live off in Autumn, and of course the wetlands from the Rylands through almost as far as Long Eaton, good pickings down there.
Failing that, go to multimap, put in your postcode, go to the arial phot and keep scanning around till you find somewhere that looks like it has lots of trees
. Thats by the by.
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