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Garden foraging
Forage for foodstuffs in your very own garden
Jake Rayson
July 09, 2023
I am running an online workshop for a Wildlife Trust next week! It’s aimed at the general public and I am introducing forest gardening from the perspective of a wildlife garden and foraging, and then introducing other edible crops.
It’s amazing how many UK native species are edible, herbal or useful to humans in one way or another. Cross-referencing the brilliant Plants For A Future website, combined with the amazing botanical Plant Atlas, I have only found one native plant that I‘ve researched that isn’t listed on PFAF. If you’re interested, that plant is Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis). Poor old Barren Strawberry. The good news is that it is a host plant to at least 9 inverterbrates.
These are the slides for the talk and these are the PDF notes ↗. Should be fun, wish me luck🤞
Forest Garden Primer
I nearly forgot to promote my new class! It’s a swift 20 minute introduction to forest gardening, jam packed with goodies and resources. As a special offer, you can download it for free with this link:
Forest garden photos
Our first Walnut harvest!
View over the Nuttery
60cm of growth on the Walnut, due to the hot and dry early summer
Meadowsweet is coming into gloriously scented flower
My friend Martin gifted me these old but perfectly serviceable cleft Sweet Chestnut stakes, for dead hedges
Inspirational quote
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach”
Quick links
Mandatory Swift bricks - UK petition for legislation to include nesting bricks for Swifts, which have declined 60% since 1995. Also, it is Swift Awareness Week.
June Extremes Suggest Parts of the Climate System Are Reaching Tipping Points - Bad news, really bad news. Best had decarbonise as quickly as possible.
One man’s mission to reforest a barren Irish hillside - Apparently his book An Irish Atlantic Rainforest is great as well!
The Biodiversity Gardener - I love the Roots and All podcast, and this is a particularly brilliant one, Paul Sterry discusses wildlife gardening and his book The Biodiversity Gardener
Hire me
Wildlife and food forest garden designer. Remote design a speciality natureworks.org.uk/design