Sadly, the odd spring weather meant the tarwi plants didn’t produce their lovely blue flowers in time to be included in the garden. According to Chelsea visitor @ryansgarden, one of the plants is in bud and may flower – it’s planted in the right hand corner, so keep a look out for it if you’re watching the tv coverage (I believe the garden is going to be included in the Thursday lunch time programme, but I’m just going by the published schedule).

Still, there are plenty of other useful plants in the garden, and it does look stunning.

This sweet cicely is nestling among the nettles at the RISC garden, and no doubt the Chelsea version is a bit more coiffed, but sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata) is a pretty perennial herb with white flowers. It has an aniseed flavour and is used in cooking – mostly with cooked fruit, as it is naturally sweet and can be used to reduce the sugar content. Apparently you can also eat the roots boiled as a vegetable, and the seed is used as a condiment and a breath freshener. The leaves can be used as a herbal tea, and are a part of some bouquet garnis.

Sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) is another perennial herb, and it’s one of several plants that have a vanilla-like scent/ flavour that’s caused by the presence of coumarin. It is used to flavour drinks, some of them alcoholic, and when dried the leaves make a nice addition to pot pourri and deter moths. The flowers are also eaten.

And those stunning tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica) have their edible uses as well. Apparently the pith from the tree trunk is rich in starch and was used for food by the Tasmanian aborigines. And the unfurled leaves are known as Crozies, an edible green that has a rather slimy texture and can be bitter. So perhaps tree ferns are best appreciated for their ornamental qualities ;)

The lupins that didn’t make it into the garden (and spare seeds) have been given away, to Malvernmeet among others, so this may not be the end of the tarwi tales :)

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Plant scientists from Oxford University were camped out in the Conservatory, talking to visitors about the research projects they’re working on.

One was part of a team investigating the chemicals that are produced as tomatoes ripen. The ones in the front of the photo are Moneymaker. But the dwarf tomato plants in the pots are often used for research because their dinky size makes them much easier to handle.

Another project is looking at the wild ancestors of our common crop plants, as they often have useful traits that can be bred into new varieties. Solanum chilense, for example, (the small tomato in the centre) is a wild relative of our cultivated tomato that thrives in deserts and so is very tolerant of drought.

A Europe-wide project is investigating hairy roots, which are plant roots that become hairy when they’ve been infected with the soil bacterium Agrobacterium rhizogenes. The hope is that these hairy roots will greatly increase the natural production of chemicals within the plant, such as the cancer-fighting compounds found in the Madagascan periwinkle. If we can increase the volume of these chemicals produced within the plant, the drugs become cheaper and more widely available. The European project is funded for 4 years, but once the techniques have been researched a commercial project could take over.

And these photos of the internal structure of trees explain the differences between the properties of different woods – it’s all to do with the density and the arrangement of the vascular tissues (that carry water and nutrients around the tree).

Elsewhere in the garden it was possible to examine small things, such as the reproductive parts of flowers, under a microscope.

Sadly the day proved too exciting for one of the gardeners ;) but you can see all of my photos (including ones of pretty flowers) in my slideshow:

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Today is the first ever Fascination of Plants Day, a global event that aims to celebrate and explore the importance of the plant life on this planet.

39 countries are participating, with more than 580 botanic gardens and other institutions hosting all kinds of events related to plants, conservation and the environment. I’m intending to find out what’s happening at the Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arborteum, who are hosting a long day of special activities. I will tell you about those when I get back.

In truth, I have already been fascinated by a plant this morning. Although I am packing up and moving and have avoided buying any new plants this year (a big strain on my willpower, I can tell you), I have been seduced by Suttons’ latest offering: the white saffron crocus. Apparently it’s Crocus cartwrightianus albus, also known as the wild white saffron. According to Rhizowen, it’s hardier than Crocus sativus and a wild relative of the commercial saffron crop. And he says that it’s fertile, which gives the potential for developing new varieties….

And so I have caved in and ordered myself 10 bulbs. They will be happy enough in a big pot on my parent’s patio for a year or too, and then they can come with me to my new home (wherever that turns out to be).

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My parents were here yesterday to help me straighten up the garden. With dad doing the shovelling, I moved more than 3 sq m of wood chips from the driveway round to the back of the house and down the garden. They’re in mounds, waiting to be raked out to redo the paths and mulch the beds – it won’t be today, as I really don’t have it in me. On Tuesday I was finalising the new layout of the concrete blocks, and hefting those about takes it out of you.

So now the garden, like the house, is much tidier. There’s plenty left for me to do when I have the time and the energy, and I can keep pottering about outside until the house is sold. But it’s hardly my garden any more, which is sad. Still, there are some spring highlights :)

And who could resist these furry leaves? My dad, apparently, who is refusing to try Chinese artichokes in case they turn out to be anything like Jerusalem artichokes. Which he hates.

Mum and dad drove back to Malvern with a car full of gardening sundries they can use, and one or two more plants – my little standard olive and bay trees, and this stunning Water Avens (Geum rivale) that was a gift from Radix.

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In this post we are lucky to have John Warland – half of the design team, FlemonsWarlandDesign – explaining why they added tarwi to the garden design.

The Lupin mutabilis was not originally part of the design for The World Vision garden. We were first introduced to the plant while driving through the Bolivian Andes, on our recent trip (January) to visit the little boy who we sponsor with the charity. Amidst the barren terrain, at more than 4000 metres altitude, we noticed what to our designer-eyes was a beautiful stand of Lupins in full bloom; quite unexpected in such a harsh landscape. I personally associate Lupins with quintessential cottage gardens, and also the fact that Lupins are notoriously toxic.

Through enquiries of the local World Vision team, it became apparent that they knew nothing of the plant’s horticultural roots or botanical lineage to the Lupin family. To them they were simply known as “Tarwi beans”. The bean is grown as a food crop, offering a high protein bean suitable as a meat substitute in some of the most remote locations in the Andes. What was to us a plant of aesthetic merit with often toxic properties, was seen by Bolivian families as an essential food source; a life-giving species. We heard about how the growing of these plants offers benefits the local communities on many levels – from reducing the need to trek up to 12 hours to a local market in search of produce, to the improved health of children and better concentration levels, helping them in their schooling. The simplest of plants producing amazing life-changing benefits.

The plant perfectly sums up the work of World Vision that we witnessed first hand in Bolivia, offering diverse nutrition in a climate that would be equivalent to trying to grow veggies on top of Mont Blanc!

On further research, we found out that the Tarwi bean is one of the “lost crops of the Incas” and began to muse about the possibility of trying to work this key plant into our Chelsea design. The striking blue and yellow flower colour was, fortuitously, not too far removed from our original colour palette and a long way from the often garish colours associated with English-grown Lupins. From a design stance, we would not be attempting to use the plant in our display if it compromised our initial vision, but it can be seen as one of the happy accidents that often crop up en route to the RHS Show. It adds a level of messaging and authenticity that you have to embrace when given the opportunity.

The plants will be the first of their type to be cultivated within the UK for commercial purposes, so it has been another challenge to source and grow the plants in a last minute dash for Chelsea. The whole message of the garden is summed up by these little lifesaving beans, so although it is a risk, in terms of using an untried plant before at such a high profile event, we feel the gravitas of the message more than justifies the attempt. In effect, making people stop and think about the message of The World Vision Garden is so much more important than any awarded medal.

Like all of our design work, this little Lupin offers beauty and as well as the key underlying message that we are trying to convey to a wider audience. The ripple effect that this plant produces, impacting children like our sponsored child, his family and community, is testament to the importance of its appearance at the world’s most prestigious flower show.

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They also sent me a pair of their fair trade gardening gloves, which I have included in the picture because of their great slogan – “I’m weeding out unfair trade” :)

Coir blocks are lightweight and easy to store and transport. They’re made from a waste product – the hairy bits on coconuts – and make a great peat-free compost, or bedding for worms in your wormery. They’re not very photogenic, however.

This one is the size of a large brick. The instructions are to soak it in water for up to 24 hours, until the block crumbles and the water is absorbed. I left mine overnight; if you’re in a hurry you can speed up the process a bit with warm water.

Once you’ve forked it over to break up any small lumps or dry patches, you’re left with 9 litres of compost – just enough for me to freshen up my four long troughs for the window boxes. It’s lovely clean stuff to handle, too.

I’m sure the petunias will love it. They’re sitting in the sun room at the moment, as some cold nights are forecast. But they will soon be making the front of my house look pretty.

There aren’t many composts you can just pop into your shopping bag when you’re walking home from town, but coir blocks do give you that option. You can read more about coir in The Peat-Free Diet.

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It therefore seems fitting to have an “end of an era” sale, to find new homes for the copies of The Alternative Kitchen Garden: An A to Z I have hanging around the house. I wrote it here, about here, and I would prefer not to cart them off to my student digs.

And so, if you would like a signed copy of the A to Z at a competitive price, you’ve come to the right place! I am offering them for £10, with UK 1st class P&P at £2.30 – a total of £12.30 (less than the current Amazon price. RRP=£14.95).

If you would like me to write something specific inside then pop that in the box before you click the Buy Now button. That will take you through to the PayPal checkout page – you don’t need a PayPal account to pay, you can use a credit/ debit card.

Personalized message details

If you are outside the UK and would like to buy a copy then send me an email and I will find out how much international P&P would be.

I am new to all this PayPal button stuff, so if it doesn’t work as you expect it to, do let me know and I will attempt to sort it out :)

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The newly-created allotment site is home to lots of vegetables, some great sheds and a chicken co-op full of lovely egg-laying ladies. They move around the allotment site, cleaning up overgrown plots and having a fabulous time. On the day that I visited, one of the hens had just found a dead mouse, so she was sorted for lunch!

Just down the road, a underused field is being converted into a community orchard and fuel wood co-op. It had been planted with eucalyptus, which has been neglected and has grown very tall. The co-op are in the process of felling the trees for fuel wood, and the lower level scrub is being cleared so that the land can be planted with fruit trees.

An integral part of the plan is the pig co-op. A small flock of Oxfordshire Sandy and Blacks are helping to clear the scrub. They’re obviously healthy and happy animals, and I’m told they make very good meat.

The orchard is being planted with local Cornish apple varieties (more on that later, as I took a trip to Cotehele), and these lovely pens are being constructed to protect them from wild deer, but also to open up the field to livestock.

Simon saved the best for last – a trip to the bee hives one of the co-ops looks after on a nearby smallholding. One of the hives needed to be moved, so we suited up and I had my first beekeeping adventure!

Simon reassured me that these bees were generally placid, and in a good mood – despite the intense buzzing!

The bees in the hive we needed to move were a bit less pleased about being disturbed – they were originally a feral colony who have found a good home here.

You can only move the hive a couple of feet at a time, so the bees can still find their way home. Simon would have had to repeat the procedure several times until they reached the desired location.

I have always been nervous of bees, and have been stung more than once. It’s amazing how little difference the bee suit makes when the air is filled with buzzing bees – it doesn’t make you feel much safer at all! Especially when they’re determined to get through the mesh protecting your face. But I managed to stay pretty calm and not run screaming back to the car :)

So thank you to Simon for a lovely morning, including a Cornish cream ‘tea’ at Cotehele Quay – reportedly the best on offer, so do drop in for one if you’re passing! After leaving Simon to do some proper work, I went on to visit Cotehele itself, which I will tell you about soon.

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There was lots of Rosa rugosa, which will have lovely large rosehips later in the year.

Sea buckthorn also has edible berries, that are held on the plant right through the winter. But by April there were fresh flowers.

The Hogweed family (Heracleaum spp.) has a bad name because of sap that can cause phytophotodermatitis (painful burns on skin exposed to sap and sunlight), but apparently the young shoots are delicious cooked, when used before the leaves unfurl.

The wild radish doesn’t have the enlarged roots of its cultivated relatives, but it has edible leaves, flowers, seeds and seedpods.

And a little bit further inland, we found silverweed, a plant of which Radix is rather fond :)

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Earlier in the year, World Vision asked me if I would like to follow the progress of their garden for RHS Chelsea 2012, from the initial design right through to its implementation for the show. My personal circumstances made that impossible, but I have been keeping up with the project and have been watching with interest a development that is right up our street.

In a change to the original design, John Warland and Sim Flemons of FlemonsWarlandDesign have added an unusual edible to the planting – tarwi, Lupinus mutabilis. Tarwi is a stunning edimental, which produces edible beans. I have seen it growing twice in the UK – once at Oxford botanic garden, and once at the Eden Project.

Through World Vision, I have been able to interview Susann Laughton, the horticulturalist at Plantify.co.uk rising to the challenge of growing these barely-known plants in time for Chelsea:

How many lupin plants are you growing? And how many are expected to be included in the garden?

The designers have ordered 100 plants for The World Vision Garden. As the quality requirement for RHS Chelsea plants is very high, only half of them might make it through the first-round of John and Sim’s selection process. There will be about 20 square metres of planting in the garden and, if possible, there will be one or two Andean lupins per square metre.

How did you sow the seeds?

We had to try various germination methods as there is little information about this lupin anywhere. After soaking the dried beans in water we initially tried the traditional method of germinating them in cotton wool, which was very successful. We also experimented planting them directly into soil at various depths exposing them to various moisture levels. We tested the influence of temperature on their germination rate by using propagators which didn’t seem to make any difference. They certainly like it moist, but not too wet conditions which cause them to rot.

The method of placing the seeds between a moist layer of cotton wool was the most satisfying as you could can see the first results of little shoots emerging from the seed within 48 hours. This method has a 70-80% germination rate. That makes this an ideal plant to be grown with children. You get an instant gratification and see changes happening every day.

How easy were they to find?

Returning from Bolivia, FlemonsWarlandDesign asked Plantify.co.uk to source the rare lupins for The World Vision Garden at RHS Chelsea this year. Despite best effort, the search was initially in vain since there are no official growers of the Andean Lupin in the UK. It is even unknown to the official holders of the National Lupin Collection.

For weeks research and investigations continued until – upon receiving a tip off – we managed to narrow our search to the South American community in London. Here, to our surprise, we found the seeds being sold wholesale – but as Tarwi beans, for food – through an international distributor, who is importing them directly from Peru.

Have you grown these plants before?

No – and, as far as we’re aware, neither have any other professional growers in the UK. So, Plantify is growing the edible Andean Lupin exclusively for The World Vision Garden at RHS Chelsea this year.

Do they need any special care?

They like moisture, but nothing too wet. Over-watering causes them to rot very easily. They love a lot of sunshine and grow very fast in good conditions. We started growing them in our front room to make sure they were well nurtured in their earliest days, but they’re now growing happily in a poly tunnel – the Andean Lupin normally flowers in June, but we are hoping to bring them into flower in time for Chelsea, as a unique feature of The World Vision Garden.

If you enjoyed this blog post then you’ll love my forthcoming book, IncrEdibles, which is all about incredible edible plants and the people that grow them.

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We were having a bit of a discussion about edible fuchsia berries the other day, and one of the comments was about Kotukutuku, Fuchsia excorticata. Although it’s not entirely hardy in the UK climate, this one is happy enough at Tregothnan. It’s not the world’s best photo, but my camera battery had run out by this point and I was snapping away with my iPhone.

This is the stunning Camphor tree, Cinnamomum camphora, used for centuries as incense, a spice and medicinally. The leaves smell of camphor when crushed :)

There was the odd bluebell in flower ;) They’re poisonous, so don’t tuck in. But some of those nasty alkaloids could one day be used for cancer treatments.

This Erythronium species is a lot tastier, with starchy edible bulbs that can be eaten raw, boiled or turned into flour. You can also eat the leaves.

Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum spp.) is a real edimental (ornamental edible); the young shoots are eaten like asparagus. The roots have been eaten, too, but usually only in harsh times….

And this is the tea! Camellia sinensis, a newly planted patch on the hillside above the lake:

To be honest I was a bit underwhelmed, as the tea plantation itself wasn’t in the part of the grounds open to the public, and I only went to see the tea!

All in all we spent around 3 hours eyeballing the plants at Tregothnan. After that we dodged the crowds, Pimms and welly-wangling and went on for a spot for botanizing at Par Beach. But I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

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I had arranged to meet up with Radix and Choclette, but our day got off to a rather inauspicious start. Rain the previous day had turned the sloping field car park into a quagmire, and one or two cars got so bogged down in the mud that they had to be towed out by a land rover.

There were lots of impressive rhododendrons, but we’ll gloss over those and concentrate on the useful plants ;)

The Chilean myrtle (Luma apiculata) has edible berries and fragrant leaves.

Water hawthorn (Aponogeton distachyos) is a South African native with edible shoots and tubers. Apparently the flowers are used in a traditional stew called Waterblommetjiebredie.

Cornus capitata is the Himalayan flowering dogwood, and has large edible fruits. (They ripen in late autumn and winter, and so may fail to ripen properly in the UK climate.)

An impressive specimen of Mountain pepper (Drimys lanceolata), which has spicy leaves and berries. Although a native of Australia, it grows so well in Cornwall that it’s called the Cornish pepper leaf.

Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum) tastes sweet when you chew it and smells like fresh hay. It can be used for a herbal tea, but that lovely smell comes from coumarin, so you have to be a bit careful.

This is the Swamp tea tree (Leptospermum myrtifolium) – poor thing, what a name.

And the Australian mint bush, Prostanthera rotundifolia.

If I hadn’t been accompanying a botanist around the garden, I wouldn’t have recognised half of these plants. As it was, the battery on my camera ran out and I had to resort to taking snaps with my iPhone. But you can see those tomorrow as there’s too many to fit into one post!

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This Buffalo berry, Shepherdia argentea, was in the forest garden outside the Eden Project, which you see on your walk down from the car park. According to the label it “tolerates infertile soils, fixes nitrogen and the berries are used in jellies”. PFAF suggests that the fruit be consumed in moderation, due to its saponin content.

Another forest garden plant was this Serviceberry (Amelanchier x grandiflora ‘Ballerina’). It should produce “a mass of flowers in spring and edible fruit in the autumn.” And yes, it was about to rain.

In the warmth of the Mediterranean biome, this prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) was fruiting, but according to How to Grow Perennial Vegetables, it can be grown in the UK reasonably easily for its edible pads.

Toyon was new to me, but is a drought-tolerant shrub that’s a prominent part of coastal sage scrub and chaparral plant communities. Its berries were eaten by indigenous Americans.

And the California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) has these pretty flowers, although normally only one fruit sets from each one. The seeds can be used as a source of protein, but only once they have been processed to remove the saponins.

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The background to Heligan is that it was once a large estate, with a working kitchen garden and pleasure gardens laid out, with a jungle area and all kinds of things. It fell into disuse and was rediscovered by Tim Smit (the man behind the Eden Project) in the 1990s. He began a restoration project that continues to this day, and the Lost Gardens of Heligan were opened to the public.

The gardens are located on a significant slope, and so while the upper gardens are (for the most part) very accessible, the lower gardens are not. In fact, there are health and safety warning signs everywhere, notifying you of trip hazards, overhanging boughs and slopes that are so steep you may get down but not back up again. It’s rather like one of those ‘choose your own adventure’ books, where your path around the gardens will depend on how brave you are!

In fact, the Lost Gardens of Heligan would make a great day out for kids (large and small) in search of adventure. If you make your way down through the more formal gardens, you come to a steep slope down to the jungle area. A maze of boardwalks take you up and down steep slopes, underneath hanging trees and bring you out on tropical vistas with giant stands of bananas, bamboo and gunnera around several lakes:

A different sort of adventure can be had in the upper gardens, where a trip back to the Victorian Era will suit even the most picky of Time Lords. The formal pleasure gardens are a mass of rhododendrons at this time of year, but in the height of the growing season the productive gardens give you a real feel for the time period, as they are managed in as Victorian fashion as possible.

The walled vegetable garden (guarded by Diggory the scarecrow) contains straight rows of heritage vegetable varieties, complete with terracotta forcing pots and robust plant supports. The only modern touch is the horticultural fleece protecting the carrots from the carrot fly – a pest that was far less troublesome in the 19th century.

The glasshouses are off limits, but you can glimpse inside to see well-trained grape vines and the citrus fruits that would have graced the table in the main house on special occasions.

Wildlife junkies will enjoy a trip to the new hide (look for Hide Park Corner on the map ;), which has remote controlled cameras to play around with as well as videos and good views of a special nature area.

I rounded out my visit with a lovely lunch in the café; there’s also a good shop with gifts, seeds and gardening stuff and plants that you may have seen growing in the gardens.

You can see more of Heligan in my holiday photo slideshow :)

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Just over three years ago, I went to an ethnobotany event at Kew and met Dr Simon Platten* and his large collection of French bean seeds. In the intervening years I have met him a couple of times at various events, and he encouraged me to think about heading down to the University of Kent and taking the MSc Ethnobotany course. I thought about it a lot, but it was never the right time.

But now it is. I applied to Kent a month ago and have just received my acceptance letter. Come September I will going back to university, and spending a year with books, plants and people.

It has been a rough few weeks, and there’s more bumps to come as we sell the house and move on. But at least now I know where I am going :D

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I am in the midst of a botanical mini-break in Cornwall – so far I have been to see the Lost Gardens of Heligan, the Eden Project, and the Tregothnan Estate. I have also been scouring the sea shore for interesting edibles with Owen from Radix.

My feet hurt, my camera battery ran out yesterday (don’t worry, I brought the charger with me) and I have had many adventures. However, my internet connection here is a little on the slow side, so you will have to wait until later in the week for a proper update.

In the meantime I leave you with a photo from Tregothnan. The magnificent monkey puzzle below is a female – you can tell, I am reliably informed by Owen, because she is growing golden cones. (If you can’t see them, click through to Flickr, where I have marked one with a note.) Sadly we didn’t see any males that could pollinate her or her nearby sister. And yes, that is a giant rhododendron.

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A few days ago I received an email, asking me the following question:

“It recently occured to me that the high potassium and phosphorus content of bananas/peels would make them an ideal candidate as an organic fertiliser of peppers, tomatos, tomatillo, cougette, achocha etc. My question is do you have any experience or insight reguarding this ? if so any advice on how best to employ the nanas.”

Now I have heard about using banana peels to fertilize roses, but it’s not something I have tried myself – ours just go on the compost. And although it’s a well-repeated idea on the internet, I have yet to find any scientific evidence that suggests it would work or well-respected gardeners who suggest it.

And there are different opinions on the best way to use banana peel as fertilizer. Green (Living) Review suggests baking them first; My Little Garden in Japan turns them into a plant smoothie with eggshells, and Real Simple simply buries them under the rose bush.

What do you think? Do you use your banana skins as fertilizers, and if so, how? Have you read something more erudite on the subject that would shed some light? Are you now wishing you’d brought along a banana for lunch?

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Chickweed is a fairly prolific weed, and a good spring salad. You can also turn the leaves into pesto, but the stems tend to be a little chewy.

The feathery leaves of yarrow are more medicinal than edible – they can be used to treat coughs and colds.

Comfrey is another medicinal herb, and has also been classed as an edible, but modern thinking seems to suggest it’s best in small quantities as it contains compounds that can cause problems in large amounts. This dwarf comfrey was in flower earlier than its taller (or garden) relatives.

Violet flowers are edible, and have been used to flavour sweets (candy) in the past.

The cowslip is another edible flower in spring.

The Japanese quince is another commonly grown ornamental plant that you might find in urban areas. The lovely blossom is purely ornamental, but later in the year the bushes produce edible fruit.

The three-cornered leek (Allium triquetrium) is a bit weedy and springs up all over the place. Make sure you’ve got the right plant – there are tall snowdrops that look remarkably similar at first glance. The oniony smell is the giveaway, though.

With wild garlic you may smell it before you see it! The leaves are used for pesto at this time of year, and the flowers and flower buds are also edible. Dave said the flower buds could be pickled and used much like capers, although they’ll have a stronger flavour….

At this time of year you can see how Staghorn Sumac gets its name – the furry new growth is very reminiscent of new antlers. Later in the year the red drupes can be used to make sumac lemonade, and the autumn colours of sumac are spectacular.

Mahonias are another common ornamental plant in parks and other public spaces, and they grow edible fruit at this time of year (although it’s one for jam, rather than to eat straight off the bush). The ones we saw on Monday seemed to have been affected by the weather, possibly one of the recent frosts.

The weather was pretty wild by this point, with a nasty cold wind, but on the way back to the pub to warm up we spotted this sedum, which would have a cucumber flavour. Another advantage of urban foraging is that it’s easy to find somewhere warm when you’re finished :)

Many thanks to Dave Hamilton and his guests for an enjoyable and informative afternoon.

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So what might you find if you go foraging at this time of year?

Here’s Dave explaining that you can make a nutritious ‘tea’ from the pine needles of long-needled pines (make sure you can spot the difference with Yew, which is poisonous). Use water that has boiled and been allowed to cool slightly, and let your tea steep a good, long while – you can leave it overnight – for the highest vitamin content. As long as you can get past the associations of pine smell and toilet cleaner, you’ll be fine :)

This is what burdock looks like in the spring, although the roots are best harvested in autumn.

And this is plantain, which forms low rosettes in places where it gets trampled. We were in a public park used by dogs, and it’s always a good idea to keep in mind which plants are likely to be clean and unpolluted – this plantain was far too exposed to be foraged.

This mallow was next to the plantain, and suffering from the exposed conditions. A healthier specimen could have provided edible (if bland) leaves.

Urban foraging offers some opportunities that wouldn’t be available in the countryside, such as bamboo shoots.

Hairy bittercress is a (very) common weed. it’s an ephemeral plant, meaning that it has a very short lifecycle. Several generations of hairy bittercress can grow in just one year.

Another well-known weed is dandelion, and the fresh green growth at this year is the best for eating. Aficionados sometimes blanch the plant (by covering it and excluding all light) to remove all traces of bitterness. If you’re pulling them up anyway, you may as well tuck in – the roots are also edible, used roasted or even as a coffee substitute.

The spring shoots of hawthorn are actually quite tasty :) and the berries can be used to make a ketchup in the autumn.

Cleavers (or sticky weed, or goosegrass, depending on which part of the country you’re from :) are great fun for kids, a pain for pet owners and a nice edible in spring.

And garlic mustard (also known as Jack by the Hedge) makes a powerful pesto and is nice cooked.

There were plenty more edible plants in the park, so come back tomorrow for part 2 :)

This blog posting is © copyright Emma Cooper 2012. Unauthorized duplication and/or republication is not permitted.

This blog posting is © copyright Emma Cooper 2012. Unauthorized duplication and/or republication is not permitted.