London Foraging

I put my back out earlier this week so decided to take it easy and just take a little stroll this weekend instead of my usual 10 mile hike. To this end, I joined the London Foraging and Bushcraft Group for a walk in the East Ham Nature Preserve.

Considering the fact that it was just a one hour stroll and that the nature preserve is only one square block, this was a surprisingly productive and informative adventure. Of course, this is an excellent time of year for foraging, but I really didn't expect to find much in a city park. Wendy, the guide, is knowledgeable about not only wild foods but also medicinal uses and some history.

Anyway, there was plenty to learn about and I can see myself doing this sort of walk regularly throughout the year to learn what's good seasonally and I've suggested to my other hiking group that we invite Wendy to join us on some of our longer walks outside of London. It might also be fun to learn things like how to create and set traps and snares and such.

So I brought home some nice little goodies. I have 1 bag each of tiny yellow plums and small red plums that I will be making jam with. I also picked a kilo of sloes so I will put up a few bottles of sloe gin tonight. I may even pop back to the nature preserve tomorrow to lay in some more because the trees were bursting with fruit and it's a shame not to put them to use.