Tag Archives: herb walk

Pluck Your Lunch in Westerpark!

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THIS WALK IS NOW FULLY BOOKED
Please join me for an urban herb foraging walk in Westerpark!

Westerpark (exact meeting point to be arranged)magnolia westerpark liberation day 2013
Sunday 26th May 2013
11:00 – 13:00
€10 per person (children free and very welcome)
Booking via email (lynn.shore@gmail.com) or this link
You will learn how to:

  • Ethically and safely forage from city parks, streets and green spaces
  • Identify lots of edible and medicinal plants which are available all over the city.
  • Turn your harvest into tasty food
  • Make simple home remedies
  • Pay back the land that we forager from

 

We will ethically forage some of the plants that we find and turn them into tasty and nutritious teas and sandwich fillings and more, on the spot.  I am passionate about helping people to discover the edible plants growing around them. My 365 ended a few weeks ago – identifying, photographing and writing about Amsterdam herbs each day for a year.

Please note: You don’t have to eat from the wild on this walk but you certainly can if you want to!

We can expect to find such tasty, useful treats as:Mayday Hawthorn 2012
Lime leaves, Hawthorn flowers,
Garlic mustard, Comfrey,
Ground Elder, Dandelion,
Nettle, Magnolia petals,
Mugwort, Self heal,
Edible tree buds and far far more.
There are hundreds of edible plants around at this time of year.

You will receive a useful colour handout with names, photos, uses and folklore of many of the plants we will find on the walk.
I’ll bring along some herbal cake or breadsticks for everyone to try.

russian comfrey frankendael

You don’t need to bring anything along to the walk but if you want to get the most out of it, here are some suggestions:

  • Bring along whatever food you like to accompany your herbal harvest.
  • A flask of hot water to make tea and some bread and butter would be useful but not essential.
  • A couple of paper bags to take some leaves and flowers home
  • A small glass jar filled with vodka, to make a tincture – I’ll show you how.
  • A small jar filled with olive oil to set up a herbal infusion.
  • Small notebook, to take a few personal notes and press some leaves, to help you find the plants another time.

Come celebrate the edible green gifts that this beautiful city has to offer!

 

 

 

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Tuesday 31st July 2012 Urbanherbology Walk in Sarphatipark

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Every time I walk or cycle past Sarphatipark, edible and medicinal plants seem to leap out at me, through the iron fence! So, as I continue to build material for my project and book, I think its time I ran an Urban Herb Walk there. I’d like to see just how many urban edibles and medicinals, can be found in 90 minutes.

Sarphatipark Urban Herb Walk
Tuesday 31st July
1230 –  1400
€8 per person
Max 12 Walkers.

Please contact me directly (lynn.shore@gmail.com) if you’d like to join this walk. The price includes a handout, to help you learn more about some of the herbs we are likely to find.

You may like to forage a snack or herb tea, on the way around.
– Bring a small flask of hot water, if you fancy making an urban herbal brew whilst we walk.
– Bring a small bottle of cold water, to wash any herbs that you may want to eat directly

We will meet at the main entrance of the park, the one near the children’s play area and the small building beside the plant swap centre.

The walk will go ahead, come rain or shine!

365 Frankendael day 86 – Thank you!

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Here are some of today’s urban herb walkers, taking time for a freshly brewed herbal cuppa as we ended our walk, in Frankendael’s hidden herb garden.

All times of year offer special delights when herb walking but I think most would agree that mid July is a particularly interesting time. There are still plenty of flowers around, plenty of rich foliage and also plenty of seeds forming on plants. This is not the time for smart spring freshness, it’s the time for herbs that are so big they spill over paths and mix right in amongst each other. This is a time of hedonistic herbal plenty.

We looked at too many herbs to mention here (most are on the walk handout) but a few, which I want to give links to, are as follows:

Birthwort (very poisonous) (Aristolochia clematis). See day 83 for a few details.

Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), my thrice daily tincture tipple, for combatting stress and far more.

Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) which we found smelling interesting amongst a patch of another edible wound herb called Enchanter’s nightshade (Circaea lutiana)

Meadowsweet (Filpendula ulmaria), Please see day 14 for details.

Thank you again, to everyone who joined me for today’s walk. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting you and I hope that your herbal adventures are filled with fun, health and good flavours!

For forthcoming herb walks and gatherings, please see my Events page.

Canalside Herb Walk

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Walk with me along Central Amsterdam canals and the Amstel. Find and learn about how to identify, harvest and safetly use many common plants, for food and simple remedies.

Inner cities are often thought of as fairly plant-barren areas but in fact they often have a richer variety of plants than many countryside areas. Amsterdam centrum certainly has lots of foragable plants and I’d like to show you some of them.

We’ll begin on the Magere Brug and walk along, seeing what we can find, probably towards Plantage Middenlaan and de Hortus Botanicus area.

You can bring your bike along with you but I think that walking along will be simpler and you’ll have a greater chance to touch and photograph the plants.

By learning about the plants during this walk, you’ll build your knowledge of the edibles which may grow near your home. I don’t expect you’ll usually want to harvest and eat herbs from busy streets but you will learn how to find them in clean locations and how to welcome them, when they find their way into your balcony and front door planters.

Booking is essential, if you would like to join me. Please contact me directly via lynn.shore@gmail.com or via the meetup group.

Cost – €8 per person.
Maximum 12 walkers
Start location – Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge, over Amstel, by Kerkstraat).
Timing: 13:00 – 15:00

Sunday 15th July 2012 – Urban Herbology Walk – Park Frankendael

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Maybe it will be hot, maybe not but whatever the weather there will be lots of herbs around in Amsterdam, on July 15th. To help more people appreciate some of the edible, medicinal and interesting herbs, growing within the city, I’m offering another Urban Herbology Walk, on Sunday 15th July 2012, from the main gates of Frankendael Park.

The walk will start at 11am and every one interested in finding out about wild herbs, which can be found in central Amsterdam, is welcome to subscribe.

My previous walks have been great fun to organise and very well received.  We will take a relaxed look at the bounty of summer herbs to be found in and around the park. The walk will last about 90 minutes and will probably end at the lovely cafe/restaurant Merkelbach, situated just inside the main entrance of the park.

Cost per participant will be €8. Maximum 12 places. Previous walks have been oversubscribed so if you wish to join me you must contact me beforehand. Please email Lynn.Shore@gmail.com or call me on 0627 596930.

During the walk you will…
Receive a useful handout, to refer to after the walk
Learn how to find and identify some safe, useful, local herbs,
Learn how to harvest with respect for the environment,
Learn how to use herbs safely in several different ways,
Receive some tasty Urban Herbal recipes.

And of course you will get the chance to meet other folk who like to know a little more about what’s growing beneath and above them!  If it sounds interesting to you then please contact me.

I really hope to meet you on 15th July!

365 Frankendael day 31

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What lovely people I met today, on my first guided herb walk of this year. We looked at lots of lovely and useful herbs. I’ll post a few photos taken by the others when they reach me.

In the meantime here’s a Frankendael Lime leaf photo which I took yesterday, for those who didn’t get to pick one to keep with their handouts. This is a perfect time to harvest a few healthy, non sticky leaves and enjoy them between slices of bread.

After the walk today, I also spotted Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor NL: Kleine pimpernel), poking it’s flower stalk up in a grassland area of the park. In my photograph there is also a ribwort to the left, with a completely different flower stalk. Salad burnet is a useful but endangered plant in the Netherlands so completely out of bounds to foragers and herbalists alike. I feel very priveledged to have seen it today. I hope to be able to take a better photograph of this plant soon. I mentioned to some people to day, the useful website called Bioimages.Org.uk where you can search for images of plants and animals to help with identification. Here’s a link to their photos of Salad Burnet. It seems like a good resource but of course never forget your field guide!

Also plenty of healing Ribwort, in the same area, with it’s long slender leaves and unusual dull coloured flower at the end of a long stalk.

Here’s a pretty tree pit from the same patch, full of a tiny flowered Cranesbill, Ribwort, Horsetail and a non edible Chrysanthemum, all mixed together by fortunate chance.