Foraging in dry weather
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it’s the circle of life, it’s food for someone else, and food is important for all species. In my house, I try take the spiders back outside, especially if they get stuck in my bath or similar, but for the spiders that have happily made a home, I leave them be – knowing that they will eat the bugs for me.
I leave weeds to grow a bit to see what they look like. I’m glad that I’ve got some nettles and brambles, as I can have nettle soup in the spring and blackberries on my porridge in autumn.
Some weeds that I have got sometimes produce beautiful flowers, so I keep them, some are really unslightly and no bugs are living on them, so I’m gonna get the shears out for them shortly.
My roses don’t look too happy, but at the end of the day, the flowers give us pleasure to look at, but for insects that is their home and food, so it’s more important to give it to them.
I wish I had some wild garlic growing. Might try see if I can buy some seeds.
HI HedgieLover
Love it that you have nettle soup and blackberries in your porridge! Brilliant.
Don’t forget that some of the boring looking plants are home to something, too. Nettle is one, of course – home to some of the butterfly caterpillars. They seem to prefer the nettles which grow in the sun and not too old. Don’t worry about eating them – you’d likely see if any caterpillars are there. But if you harvest the nettles for soup, you may be creating some nice new growth for the caterpillars, as a by product.
If you’re buying wild garlic seeds, make sure you get the right type for the right location. Often ramsoms is called wild garlic – pretty white flower, tends to grow in woodland – apparently likes it damp – with the broad (vaguely tulip like) leaves and I believe it’s the leaves that are eaten. Or the other type which tends to grow in the wild in more open places, road edges, etc. sometimes called crow garlic, which is more like the sort people grow. Then there’s garlic mustard, I think sometimes called hedge garlic – again white flower, but not as pretty as ramsoms but a plant with stem and leaves.
I’d be interested to know if you can get seed for any of them.
I was looking into people’s experience of growing wild garlic on the net – people don’t have too much success – after that, I realised probably best to forage for the wild garlic, as there is plenty, and I don’t think they would like my garden – not damp enough.
I’ve only made one batch of nettle soup in my lifetime, along with some wild garlic butter that I made for garlic bread. Both were really nice, so will probably do it again another year.
It’s really difficult to pick and wash nettles, that’s why I havn’t been motivated to do it again. And you can only have it for 2 mths of the year, when they are young.
This autumn I made stewed apples with stewed blackberries for my porridge, it was so nice I had it right up til spring, but by that time I had to get my blackberries from the supermarket.
It was the nettle patch that Sweetpea stayed for half an hour, after she ventured out of her release box, and she had found something to eat, and was self annointing for half an hour in the same spot until a handsome male turned up.
Hi HedgieLover
It’s interesting that Sweetpea self annointed on release. The last one I released here after months of stay in Wildlife Hospital also self annointed before she ventured back into her old home. Almost as if she was trying to cover up the smell of being in Wildlife Hospital and becoming a proper wild hog again.
Hello everyone I just thought I’d let you know that when I said about mealworms it was a typo and I was meant to put Calci-worms short for calcium worms because unlike mealworms they have a good balance in them and are high in calcium protein and fat and A few mixed in with some cat food would be nutritious for them from what research I’ve been doing. I really hope no one else who doesn’t know that they are really bad read my message and Is now feeding them because of a typo I made. Anyway I hope you all have a nice day and happy hog watching 🙂
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