Spring Greens and Other Things – a Wildfood Wander.

On Sunday 11^th May a party of us joined Richard Whiting at RSPB Coombes Valley for a wildfood wander. Richard, who is the Churnet Valley Living Landscape Partnership Practical Projects Officer, showed us a whole variety of springtime wild plants that are edible – though not always particularly tasty. Notably, nettles were included in the list. If you want to know how not to get stung when you eat nettles fresh fromm the plant here is what you do. You take hole of the tender growing tip of the plant, making sure that the stinging hares are inside the bundle so that you don't get stung. Then you carefully pluck the tip off the stem and, keeping it tightly closed press it together so that the hairs are all squashed and rendered harmless. Then you can eat the nettle without being stung. It really works – though I can't actually say the snack was tasty!

Other plants we tried were Brooklime, Lady's Smock, Large and Wavy Bittercress, Sorrel, Lime and Beech leaves, Hawthorn buds, and Ribwort Plantain. We finished off the event with a Sunday lunch. The starter was a leafy soup and crunchy pignut roots, a main course of rabbit stew cooked with a variety of wild plant leaves accompanied with an Elderberry sauce, all washed down with Dandelion coffee (made with dried and roasted Dandelion roots).