Damsons / Summer / Autumn / Edible Damsons are a common shrub with edible plum-like fruits.  Closely related to Sloes, Bullaces and Greengages. Common Names Damsons, Damson Plum Botanical Name Prunus domestica subspecies insititia, or sometimes Prunus insititia Scientific Classification Kingdom – Plantae Order – Rosales Family – Rosaceae Physical…
Tag: hedgerow
Wild Gooseberry / Summer / Edible Wild Gooseberry is a thorny shrub or bush, up to 1.5 metres high. It’s difficult to know whether the plants you find are truly wild or if they are feral. Gooseberries were cultivated a lot in the past. Common Names Wild Gooseberry, European Gooseberry,…
Lords and Ladies / Spring / Summer / Autumn / Toxic Through this piece, we’re going to look at the full Identification Guide for Lords and Ladies as well as how to make sure we don’t confuse this one with Common or Lambs sorrel, or accidentally pick it amongst our…
Yew Tree / Spring / Summer / Autumn / Edible / Toxic Yew Tree (Taxus Baccata) Identification An evergreen tree up to 20 meters tall but quite often used as hedging. Virtually all parts of the Yew Tree are potentially deadly poisonous. Common Names English Yew, Common Yew. Botanical Name…
Poison Hemlock / Spring / Summer / Deadly  Poison Hemlock is one the most deadly plants found growing in the UK and if you forage for anything at all you should definitely invest time in learning how to safely identify this one. It can grow in quite staggering numbers…
This Blackberry Jam recipe calls for the use of less sugar and pectin than your average recipe and the resulting jam is more of a pure berry compote. This is great as the flavour of the berry isn’t overpowered or lost in the common heavy use of sugar! This method…
Stinging Nettles / Spring / Summer / Autumn / Edible Stinging Nettles are a plant that we’ve all been stung by at some point and, as such, probably remember! There are a few lookalikes, but none of them are dangerous – they just don’t taste as good. Common Names Stinging…
Dandelion / Spring / Summer / Autumn / Edible Dandelion is one of the UK’s most prolific weeds and most of us have spent some time digging this one up out of the garden, kicking and swearing at it. But if we look at it slightly differently it could help…