I enjoyed another lovely chat with Ken on his Drive time show on KCLR on Friday. As usual, we were talking about food but this time we were talking about Wild Food. At this time of the year, there’s a lot of food available in the wild. I was hoping that we could encourage people to take a look at the plants around them and maybe even bring some of the more interesting ones home and EAT THEM! We focussed mostly on Nettles and I brought along some Nettle & Wild Garlic Pesto and even some Nettle Beer for Ken to try. Thankfully Ken enjoyed these as much as I do.

There’s a list of some of the other plants in season at the moment, below.

The recipe for Nettle Beer is on the Croan Cottages website here.

The recipe for the Nettle Pesto is also on the Cottages site, here.

To listen to the Food slot on Ken’s show, visit his website:

http://kenmcguire.ie/food-chats-wild-garlic-pesto-nettle-beer-kclr-drive/

Wild Food, April

This month, the following plants are in season:

• Stinging Nettle, found in rich soil almost everywhere
• Ramsons/Wild Garlic, Allium ursinum. Prefers damp woodland setting.
• Three-cornered leek, Allium triquetrum.  Prefers damp woodland setting.
• Dandelion flowers, widespread – particularly on my lawn!
• Daisy leaf, widespread – particularly on my lawn!
• Gorse flower, common particularly in upland areas.
• Primrose, a lovely hedgerow flower.
• Fairy-ring Champignon, produces the very distinctive darker rings in lawns and grassland. Rings can be huge!
• Hawthorn leaves, edible but not particularly tasty.
• Hop Shoots, rare.
• Morel Mushrooms, if you find them, mark the spot. They’ll appear every year. Be sure to give them a good clean. Humans aren’t the only species to think that they’re delicious!
• St George’s mushroom
• Greater Plantain, common on lawns.
• Ribwort Plantain, common on lawns.
• Pennywort, often found growing on old stone walls.
• Alexanders, Sea Radish, Sea Beet all particularly common by the coast.