Free food from hedgerows & countryside

[Zetetic]

I'd like to start preserving local blackberries in kilner jars for myself and for presents.

What other free food is easy to preserve?

I miss him. Maybe I should get a bottle in for Christmas [santa]

I might try a bottle myself.

Interesting, Stratters -I have a forest (almost) of them right near me. I may play...

Actually you CNET preserve dandelion, can't you? You can make it into drinks.

Can, not CNET.

I can make most anything into drink. It should stand me in good stead.

A forest of what, bulrushes? Cloudberries?

I've just bunged cloudberry, and lingonberry liquor into my Amazon basket, and told DH to hoof it to Ikea for jam. He usually goes a couple of times a year, to stock up. Can't have Christmas without them.

If you can find hedgehog mushrooms they're a good one as they're so very, very obvious because of the little teeth underneath. They're also nice, and though they're not supposed to be good to dry because they crumble, I've done it reasonably successfully.

The only wild mushrooms I'll eat are hedgehog, St Georges, giant puffballs and shaggy parasols as I'm happy that I'm definitely not going to mis-identify them.

Dandelion wine? Parents used to make it, but I've never tried it.

Ramsons/wild garlic. I use it for cooking but I also use it to make flavoured oil for gifts and also ramson pesto. Delicious.

I've eaten bulrushes, on a prehistoric foraging day (archaeology)
I've eaten the sliced and boiled rhizome, and had the young shoots stirfried.
Haven't tried pollenbread, maybe next year.

If you live near the coast you could also look for samphire. That can be pickled.

Bilberries make very nice jam (if you can resist eating them while you pick).

Amazon do cloudberry jam if DH is pushed, Stratter5.

Not so easily preservable, but one of these is a great source of free food if you're not veggie . . .

I've actually rabbit fenced all my land now and can't quite bring myself to go to the grief of going up there 3 times a day to check traps when I don't need to, but we did eat a lot of rabbit stew back in the day

Yes, a forest of bulrushes Stratters. Well, a patch.

Are bilberries the same as blaeberries? They're the taste of my childhood. But not my adulthood, alas, as I live nowhere near where I grew up.

The guardian do a poster of the edible berries in the uk. We have it on our wall and are trying to find all of them and try them out.

I'm not sure, SpottedZebra. They're little blue berries that grow all over the mountain

May I just applaud Dolphins's v middle class post there!

Sadik I googled -they're one and the same. I grew up in the rural Highlands, hence blaeberries. I now live S.e. England, where there are none, alas.

I'm not! I promise!! We home ed our eldest and spend a lot of time in the woods :)

I have a crab apple tree but have never done anything with the fruit. What is the best way to preserve them? Jam? And more importantly can I make wine?

Oh sorry Dolphins wasn't trying to be mean. I just thought it was an excellent post! I love berries, and the woods! I honestly do! And I read the guardian (online), and I've had a poster on a wall in my time too...

patter crab apples are quite sour so take lots of sugar. But they are FULL of pectin, so you can use them to make other low pectin stuff set. And because of their pectin, they make ace jelly, to which you can add other flavours eg herbs, chilli.

Lots of ideas - thanks. If I perfect this lot I might be able to live off nature for free!

I'm imagining the look on my dc's faces if I give them bullrushes.

Hazelnuts from the bush/tree in Autumn . Think they are also called filberts .
Very common on country walks and the wood is lovely and pliable also if bush is needing some sensitive pruning .
A long time ago I collected a load of nuts . Roasted some with salt and the other in melted chocolate .
Mindful of wild life .......one for me .....three for you .

How does one get hold of this Guardian poster?

If you live near the coast then sea buckthorn is quite a useful plant. Both leaves and berries have culinary uses.
Mind you, you have to be a committed forager as it's a spiky bugger!