Here are a few images from the recent 7 Day UH Foraging Challenge and also taken on the walks I’ve led this month. March has been beautiful and fresh plants are everywhere! If you would like to challenge me to a few days – a week – a month – whatever – of finding tasty urban plants to forage in the town or city where you live, let me know! I did this for 365 days, several years ago. There is always something to forage in cities, why not give it a try! Let me know through the comments / contact form if you would like to. Instagram was a good place to hold and #urbanherbology #7daychallenge the photos. So if you use Instagram it’s even easier.
Edible Ribes bush, alongside my daughter’s Athletic club. I don’t wait for the berries, the leaves taste great and make a delicious nutritious tea (and remedy).Wild garlic at the back (Allium ursinum) with a poisonous bulb flower at the front.A copse of Magnolia trees in Park Frankendael, Amsterdam. Love these trees!Magnolia blossom – Delicious when foraged sensitively.I took some walkers into the orchards yesterday.Gallium odoratum – Lady’s bedsraw – Ooh, I hope it’s in flower to make Maybowl this year!Herbs growing beneath an orchard, part of Fruit 4 Sport project in a sports fields of Watergraafsmeer. Purple deadnettle, stinging nettle, daisy.I was so happy to find two huge plants of Miner’s lettuce / Spring beauty / Winter purslane (Claytonia perfoliata), close to my school. I plucked them from a council flower border and we ate them over the week. Delicious!!!Here she is – Certainly worthy of the name Spring Beauty (Claytonia perfoliata).Wild garlic, Daslook (Allium ursinum), has been creeping into flower here for a couple of weeks. The most sought after foraging herb around at this time of year. As I type this, I’m off to dig up some bulbs from a path in one of the River of Herbs orchards, to give to children on my Foraging & Fermentation course at school. They are big fans of Allium ursinum and want to grow it.Forthythia – The flowers are edible but they open when not many flowers are available to wildlife. They taste good though and this is mine and my daughter’s birthday flower 🙂 It is generally looking amazing for the Spring Equinox.This is a Euphorbia species. A striking plant, growing outside of the law courts close to my work. This whole species is poisonous. It bleeds a white latex sap when the stems or leaves are damaged. Foragers should know the poisonous plants as well as they know the edible plants.
I went to the orchards today to dig some of the wild garlic out of the paths. It is so successful in this area that it clogs some sections of the wood chip path. These are going to shady tree pits and to my school foraging group.
The River of Herbs orchards gardening group meets every Monday morning, behind Huize Frankendael, address: Middenweg 72, Amsterdam 1097 BS. Do join them any time, especially if you’d like to get involved and help out.
In this short video, I’m plucking out flower buds on their stems, from the path edging wild garlic. This prevents it getting out of control next season.
And in this one, outs just to show the difference a bit of wild garlic recall can make to the paths. There should be a clear path right up the the gauze leaf bin…
Urban Herbology 