Edible Leeds - Wild Food Foraging Courses and 4 Wild Seasons Pop Up Dining Events

If the love of, care of and protection of the planet and it's amazingly diverse array of organisms is of importance to you then I think you will love and appreciate this video. I first viewed this while wilding it up in Scotland with fellow friends, foragers, mycophiles, Mark Williams (Galloway Wild Foods) and Andrew Macfarlane (Acuvital), I'm so glad I did. Enjoy.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwLviP7KaAc

Wild Food Walk & Feast @ Skelton Grange Environment Centre I was very excited and proud at the prospect of hosting events at TCV Skelton Grange Environment Centre this year (click on the following link for more details about www.tcv.org.uk/skeltongrange ). The first event held was the wild food walk and wild food feast. There was a lovely chilled vibe on the day and a really great turn out. The grounds and centre at Skelton are an excellent location for this kind of event and indeed for all the other environmentally themed events hosted there. Lot's of different habitats playing host to a plethora of edible and interesting flora. A huge thank you to Caroline Crossley for her kind and generous support throughout the day, taking photos, warming food, cleaning dishes, opening/closing the centre etc etc... and for making everyone feel extremely welcome. I'm really looking forward to hosting similar events there in 2015. Sloe fruits   Wood Aven...

The summer episode of, Walk On The Wild Side, was held in Barnoldswick, or Barlick, as the locals call it, on Sunday 6th July. Barnoldswick, which is in Lancashire, borders Yorkshire and despite the fact that Yorkshire was gripped by the fantastically, fabulous, fervour that was Le Tour De France - and rightly so, what an historic and momentous occassion - what a fabulous turn out we had! Huge thanks, from Danielle and myself, to everyone that joined us and made the walk the amazing experience it was. The route took in country lanes, open fields, wooded streams (?) and parkland.The plants we focused on included; Ramsons, Meadowsweet, Hogweed, Ribwort/Broad-Leaved Plantain, Cleavers, Common/Wood Sorrel, Pignuts, Elder, Vetch and Wild Rose This shaded little lane still had Wild Garlic Seeds prime for the picking. A sampling of sweet pickled Wild Garlic Seeds had to be had. I'd taken along some pickled Hogweed Seeds for sampling, yet none of the Hogweed along the lane...

Fabulous turn out on Saturday 28th June (fully booked!). Big thanks to such a wonderful group for helping make the event so enjoyable. Quite an international feel to it aswell, had folk from New Zealand, South Africa, France and Australia, great to have so many folk from different countries interested in wild foods in the UK. Plants along the route included; Elder, Raspberry, Nettle, Hogweed, Hemlock Water-Dropwort, Common/Wood Sorrel, Reedmace, Oyster Mushroom The wonderful and amazing Elder ( Sambucus nigra) has many stages of use, buds, flowers, berries and so many uses (book on a walk to find out more...). It would be so very rude not to dedicate time to discuss it. Don't forget to ask permission from the spirits before harvesting though :0) Sampling, Elder Buds pickled in Sweet Magnolia Vinegar and Colsfoot Vinegar (left). Elder buds can be used in a variety of dishes. It's great knowing what's edible but so important knowing what's not ed...

A Walk On The Wildside, the first of a series of co-hosted walks by Edible Leeds and Danielle Kay, Medical Herbalist (Wise Woman Herbalist), was a great success. The day was spent looking at the edible/medicinal delights to be discovered among the riverbank and grassland beside the gently meandering and beautiful River Wharfe in Otley. Danielle brought with her, a range of homemade tinctures and fresh wild herb teas, added perfectly to the multi-sensory experience of the day. Along the way and toward the end of the walk, time was made available for the group to forage for fresh, wild herbs, foliage and flowers. Some of these were cooked up fresh on the banks of the river and others were included in a fresh, Wild Green Salad. Adding to the overall, happiness, wildness, energy and freedom of the day, as we sat to prepare our wild feast the sunshine burst through, scattering the clouds, bathing us with warm, radiant rays - perfect! Discussing the properties of Cleavers  ...

A few questions that I'm often asked on my wild food walks are, How did you get into foraging, how long have you been foraging and why do you forage? Admittedly, the more I learn and discover the more i realise that I am in my 'infancy' in regards to my 'wild food journey' (that's not to say I don't know much, in reality I know a considerable amount, but there is, in my opinion, always scope to learn and discover more, to further enhance my skills set, thus enabling me to teach my learnings and experiences to others attending my walks to further enhance their learnings and experiences on their 'wild food journeys' and that they may do the same in return - a cycle of experince, learning, teaching and understanding and making connections). I hope that those of you who read this see it in the positive that it is :0) With this in mind, I drove up to the Lake District on, Wednesday 16th April - Friday 18th April. I had arranged to meet up with fellow f...