Hey welcome to UK Wildcrafts. So April's a really abundant month for foraging, most of the
plants I featured in the March videos are still available now and there's also a lot
more coming into season. This time of year I'm looking to forage in places that are open
and getting as much of that early spring sunlight as possible. So places such as rivers and streams
or in meadows
open country lanes and hedgerows or woodland edges. [Music]
This lovely little plant here is Apple mint also known as Round leaved mint,
it looks to grow in damp soils especially alongside rivers and streams.
So these are the little new growth shoots you'll start seeing around April time
and this is a my favorite time to pick it before it goes into flower.
It's got quite a nice subtle mint flavour it's not as strong as the other mints like
spearmint and peppermint.
It's native to the UK and most of Western Europe
and it's been introduced to Eastern Europe and large parts of North America.
It can grow up to just under a meter in the right conditions its flavour goes well
in sauces and jellies and syrups and what i most use it for is for making mint tea
and its subtle flavor works quite well. So as i said this is when it's at its best stage
before it starts to flower in the summer. In the summer it'll have spikes of pink to purple flowers
like a lot of the mints do. the apple mint has rounded leaves which do grow quite a bit larger
than this and it does have toothed edges it looks like they're just rounded when they're at this
young stage but if you turn the leaf over you see the the teeth are kind of curved underneath.
When crushed the leaves have a really sweet apple smell
and the leaves are covered in really fine white hairs
so that they feel really fuzzy for that reason i don't really like to eat them
raw because i don't like that fuzzy texture if you look on the underside they're even fuzzier
and the stem is also covered in those fine white hairs, and like all mints it has the square stem.
So i'll collect some of these for making herbal tea
this is more of a tea for drinking in the morning because it gives you energy. What
i'll do is boil some water and then take it off the heat and then steep the mint
in the water but i don't boil the leaves because that'll kill a lot of the nutrients.
Yeah this is one of my favorite herbs for making tea with
this and another member of the mint family which i'll show in this video a bit later on.
This is lamb's lettuce or corn salad it's a mostly urban or coastal plant
that's more common in the south and it can grow up to about 20 centimeters
it's a member of the honeysuckle or caprifoliaceae family.
On young growth it has a basal rosette with quite spoon
shaped leaves though most of those have died away now
the upper leaves are more elongated and they grow in opposing pairs.
After each set of opposing leaves the stem splits into two and the stem
splits in the same direction as the leaves.
The flowers grow from the end of March or April they're really small and they have
five petals which are either white or very light blue the petals are fused to make a funnel shape
and they grow in really dense clusters
and the clusters are surrounded by bracts.
It makes a nice tasty salad plant with a mild sweet lettuce-like flavour
there's not really much you can mistake these for
apart from other edible closely related members of the caprifoliaceae family.
This is a cowslip (Primula veris) very closely related to the primrose and also edible.
You see the leaves are crinkly just like the primrose and have that
white mid-rib on the underside.
The main difference is the flowers primrose only has one flower per stem cow slip has many
and the flowers are smaller they still have five yellow petals and the petals are notched.
In my area in the southwest these are fairly common but i've heard in other parts of the uk
they're becoming quite rare so just be mindful when you're picking them if there's not many
then maybe just leave them to grow. Just like primrose the leaves can be eaten
raw or cooked and i just treat them in the same way as cabbage and the flowers are very
similar tasting to primrose though i actually prefer these i find them a little bit sweeter
and they make quite a nice garnish.
[Music]
This is a Wych elm and in April it provides two types of wild food,
first of all we've got the young leaves just as they're opening it's not much
of a flavor to these but they're good added into salads and we've also got the seed pods
and these are a much better food these here these taste exactly like cucumber
and they're nice just eaten raw.
You'll know when it's time to collect these because there'll be masses of them
all over the woodland floor
there should also be loads in the trees as well
and these will come out just as the tree is starting to show its leaves
so you've got the young leaves and the seed pods available at the same time.
So to identify the witch elm by the leaves, these leaves are a bit more
mature here i wouldn't eat these ones because the texture goes quite
almost like sandpaper, but to id them first of all you look at the the base of the leaf and
they're asymmetrical so one side will be higher up than the other like that
and also like i said it's got a very rough texture.
They're oval and they come to quite a sharply pointed tip and they're sharply toothed as well.
They're almost like little discs with the tiny seed in the middle and you eat the whole thing
really nice refreshing flavor like i said just like cucumber.
The fresh shoots of the bramble bush are edible from late march through early april or the best
time to be collecting them and you want them like this just before the leaves open properly.
while the stems and the thorns are still soft
so like this here.
Once they get to about this stage the stems start getting too woody and the thorns
start getting quite sharp so you just take the very tip part like that.
You can still eat the leaves once they're open but they're much better at this stage.
So these shoots will grow progressively throughout march and april and depending on how much sunlight
the bush gets will depend on how early they grow they can be eaten raw they're quite astringent
i don't personally like the flavor raw but i know some people do they're much better
just fried for a minute or so in a bit of hot butter and also really good for making tea.
They're highly nutritious if you think this whole bush this time of year is putting
all of its energy into growing these little shoots as quickly as possible
so there's going to be a lot of nutrition in them.
I think these are a really under used edible resource
if you look at this patch here
just goes back as far as you can see absolutely covered in these fresh bramble shoots
absolutely thousands of them so you could take quite a lot and it wouldn't really be noticeable.
This is goose grass or cleavers you'll probably know it as the plant that clings to your
clothes due to all the really fine hooked hairs it's a really common plant and it's not fussy
where it grows it's happy to grow in shaded woodlands or out in the open alongside paths.
So i just eat the growing tip like that that's where all the nutrition is i don't really
eat it raw just because the texture isn't very nice because of all the hooked hairs
but if you do want to cook it i just recommend pan frying it just for a minute or so or another good
use for it is to put it in raw into water like into a bottle and just leave it overnight and then
in the morning just strain these off and drink the water and it's just like a nice refreshing quite
similar to cucumber water. So these stems are all quite young but as they mature they'll grow up to
a good few feet and they'll be trailing through all of the other plants like the brambles.
They have whorled leaves so instead of being
alternate or opposite they actually grow around the stem in sets of six or eight.
Like you see there just circling around the stem
would be eight leaves and then a bit higher up another eight
the leaves are long and lanceolate
and the margins are entire or not toothed.
Cleavers are from the same family as coffee a bit later in the year they'll produce tiny little
hooked seeds and these seeds contain a really small amount of caffeine i've not
tried it yet but apparently you can dry and roast them and make a really nice wild coffee
but the seeds are really tiny so you'd have to collect quite a lot of them.
Ground ivy is a perennial that is native to the UK and Europe, it's a very common plant in woodlands
as well as open grasslands and roadsides so it forms these really dense low-growing patches
and it's called ground ivy because it spreads along the ground like ivy does but it's not
actually related to ivy, it's a member of the mint family and this is the other plant
that i was saying about i like to make tea from it's got a really deep earthy flavour.
The leaves are kidney shaped and they have rounded teeth
and they can grow up to about two or three centimeters across.
So one of the best id features for this plant is if you crush the leaves and smell them
they get really strong musky herbal smell
so the leaves can be found all year but it's much easier to spot when they're in flower
so as i said the plant grows trailing along the ground but the
stems with flowers grow upright like these here
and the plant flowers from april throughout spring.
The flowers are blue to purple and are funnel shaped
and they grow in clusters of two to three growing from the leaf axils.
and it has the distinctive square stem of all mints
if you roll it in your fingers you can feel the square stem.
I mostly collect this plant in the spring
so i collect the leaves and the flowers and use them fresh or dried for making herbal
tea and they can also be used as a herb in placement of something like rosemary
and they're good used in savory dishes with egg and a seasoning for meat,
and they also go really well in soups they add a nice extra depth of flavour.