Hedgerow harvests - what are you foraging atm?

[grenfell]

Medlars , lovely even if they look about ready to chuck just when they are ready to eat. Been a while since I had any. None round by us , I think the last time I had some was a few years ago when I worked at Stowe house in Buckinghamshire along with loads of chestnuts a few walnuts that I managed to find before the squirrels and I think I also had some mulberries too although that could have been from somewhere else.
Back to the fly agaric for a second. The mushroom/milk mixture has been sat around for about a week now in a cut down plastic milk bottle. I've not noticed any dead flies in the mix or around the room for that matter but as there haven't been many around in the first place it's hard to draw any conclusions as to the efficiency of the experiment

[nickdutch]

Just yesterday I have downloaded a PDF ebook on foraging in the British isles and especially in Urban areas. Its quite interesting and I was thinking of dedicating more time over the coming months to getting my head around that mindset, not just for the berries in the Summer and Autumn, but also the foliate stuff that grows in this country.

I want to try and build up a all year round routine and then to try an work out how to generate full meals from the harvestable stuff and then to build a routine whereby I could forage for lets say one square meal a week and then build up from there over the coming years.

Its still an idea not an actual plan, but I will see how well i do anyway.

I get the feeling that in practice I will be using the wild greens as a side salad rather then the main act in a meal, so maybe a tin of spuds to be the backbone of the meal and the nettles, dandelions etc to provide some of the micronutrients and flavour rather than the bulk of the caloric intake of the meal.

[Eclectickle]

The first sweet chestnuts of the year.

Yours a decent size then?
Around here they're all tidgy

Sorry for the delay in replying.

The chestnuts are smaller than the ones that you buy in the shops, but there were so many of them it was worth collecting them.

The nuts start falling about November, but you will get empty nut shells falling from October. The collecting rule I follow is if the brown chestnut shell is bendy it's empty, so don't bother collecting it. If it is swollen and firm collect it. Wear heavy boots and gardening gloves when you go collecting. If there are any partially open spiky cases you can gently roll it under your boot to get to the nuts. Some people say not to do this as it can damage the nuts, but, I've never had any problems. Check under piles of leaves for any nuts that have fallen out by themselves. From one tree my daughter and I collected 2 carrier bags full.

The nuts have a high water content so if you just leave them they will quickly go mouldy. To store them cut the nuts in half then dunk in small batches into boiling water for a few seconds to loosen the skin. While still hot, use needle nose pliers to squeeze the brown shell and the nut will pop out without its bitter skin. If the skin does not come off first time, you can dunk it in the boiling water again for a few seconds. When you have shelled all the nuts, freeze them in batches or dry them in a de-hyrator to stop them rotting.