A Walk Around Britain

The first wild garlic we have found this year.

Growing in woodland and shady damp places we use ramsons for putting raw into sandwiches, eating on its own or for adding flavour to pot.

Garlic is good for immunity, and helps lower your blood pressure. When eaten by itself it can be fairly strong, so have a bottle of water handy.

If you have any trouble identifying it just pick some and give it a smell…

Spending the night in the garlic can make you keep the smell for days.

The flowers taste good too.

We eat a lot of this plant. It is both common and tasty. It makes a great salad, eaten raw, and is good lightly steamed and added to the stew pot. Cook the whole upper of the plant. The Mouse-ear (hairier leaves) variety cannot be eaten raw.

For medicine this herb is cooling for the skin. Wrap some in a cloth, dip it in warm water and apply to skin abrasions, boils, blisters and bruises.

A lipbalm is made by adding tallow (animal fat) and applying to chapped lips and weather beaten skin.
Chickweed is a mild laxative (so don’t eat huge amounts, though even a whole chickweed salad doesn’t have any disastrous outcome) so a strong tea can be made for constipation.

It is said that when the Chickweed flowers are open, there will be no rain.

Walking through the woods the other day we spied some newly emerging dock leaves pushing their way through the forest floor.

Dock leaves are full of tannin and when eaten are very bitter and no good for you. To make the mature leaves more palatable they need to be boiled in several changes of water to rid them of tannin.

Ed tried the new dock leaves raw and found them fairly tasty. The bitterness was not there. From this we make the assumption that the new small leaves, especially when they’ve been covered by forest leaves, are good to nibble on, and good for the pot.

The hips of the Dog Rose briar are the finest source if vitamin C in the wild. We have found them still tasty on the bush in February.

As a trail snack pick the soft (not really squishy) ones, squeeze the hip between your fingers.

A toothpaste-like eruption of lava red sweetness bursts forth, you eat and it is good.
Some are slightly alcoholic by the end of the winter, we like this too.

In November/December we pick the harder hips, dry them whole to make a winter tea. Crush the dried hips slightly and steep in boiling water for 15 minutes, strain through a clean cotton cloth and drink.

Rose hips are associated with the planet and god Jupiter, the principle of expansion and growth, helping us keep springlike during the winter months.

There is nothing better than rose hips in winter for defending against infection, preventing colds and helping with exhaustion.

To ease hayfever in the summertime, make tea with elderflowers, fresh nettles, plantain, eyebright, mallow/marshmallow and mullein. Mix in a spoon of local honey if you can find it.

At this time of year there are the skeletons of teasel plants gracing us with their silhouettes.

We have been wondering what its uses are for quite a time. We recently found some of its story.

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Teasel

Dipsacus fullonum (D.Sylvestris)

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Folk Names

Card Weed, Barber’s brush, Gypsy’s Comb

Teasel close up

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Medicine

Teasel is a good plant for walkers. It helps injuries to your joints and tendons. It eases muscle pain and inflammation, weakness of legs, knees and lower back. It is the root that is used. Crush it as an external poultice or make a weak decoction (brew).

It strengthens the nerves and eases chronic fatigue.

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Practical

Taesan is the Anglo-Saxon name for ‘cleaning cloth’. Fuller’s Teasel is used to raise nap in freshly-made wool without breaking the cloth.

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Lore

The Bath of Venus is rainwater collecting in cups where the leaves surround the stem. This water is said to be a great cleanser, good as an eye wash, for beautiful skin and getting rid of warts.

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Sources:

Brunton-Seal, Julie, Seal, Mathew. Hedgerow Medicine. (Merlin Unwin Books, 2008)