Wealden Times | WT233 | October 2021 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Garden
Fruits and nuts
The harvest season starts in the late
summer with soft fruit like blackberries,
but even in October the hedgerows are
still packed with deliciousness. There
are elderberries for sauces and wine,
rosehips for syrups and cordials, wild
plums and apples for crumbles and
pies, cobnuts for roasting and sloes
for seeping in jars of gin. A veritable
forager’s feast awaits at the edges of
fields and paths, but be careful where
you tread and be mindful not to disturb
wildlife, or to take more than you need.
Forager’s hedge
If you would like all the joys of a hedgerow
harvest without the muddy trek out into
the fields, you could always grow an edible
hedge. You might have to share it with the
wild creatures, but ultimately that would
make the experience even better – and
save money on bird food. Late autumn or
early winter is the perfect time for planting
a deciduous hedge. It is much cheaper to
buy bare-rooted plants, or whips and they
will establish roots over the winter and get
going quickly during the following spring.
It’s fun choosing your own mix of species
plants, but some hedge suppliers even list
edible hedges that you can buy by the
metre – look out for the gin lover’s version.
Mushrooms
Field mushrooms and other
edible fungi are plentiful in
autumn. A mushroom is the
fruiting body of the fungus
and forms when soil conditions
are warm, but the air is cooler.
However, many species are
poisonous – some are even deadly.
It can be confusing working out
which is which, so always make
sure that you take an expert guide
with you when foraging for fungi.
acorns
pine cones
cobnuts
Foraging for non-edibles
This is a great time of year for collecting
decorative cones and seed heads, colourful
leaves, twigs, acorns and woodland
finds that can be turned into natural
arrangements, or saved to be used
at Christmas. Autumn wreaths are a
charming celebration of the season and
are becoming popular to make. If you are
collecting for your Christmas wreath it’s
best not to wait until December to go out
foraging, because the weather has a habit
of trashing delicate natural decorations.
rosehips
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