Skip to main content

Dont Collect Chestnuts

I do sometimes think "is it ok for me to collect wild food" because surely there are lots of wildlife who cant go to tesco if they dont find any nuts in the woods that day. And generally people like the guys at River Cottage and other proponents of wild food collecting give the answer more or less of "yes its fine, there is plenty to go round, so long as you always leave a bit of it ie dont dig up ALL the truffles you can find in one spot."

Now I know the deer in Richmond Park are not a "naturally occurring" species in a "natural" environment but even so I found this interesting. I was up there on an early morning to photograph the deer with a friend and saw this notice.

I hadn't seen that sign when I collected the chestnuts last time.

I have taken an interest in the past in the idea of eating invasive species so will start to investigate that as an alternative. We could act as a biological control agent, enhancing the biodiversity rather than damaging it, by making conscious choices about what we eat and using wild resources in a balancing rather than 'i eat what i am interested in' sort of a way.

And now here are some nice pictures of deer and chestnut trees:
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous1:06 pm

    Excellent musing. One thing would-be foragers need to be very careful of is strip-mining the land of wild edible plants.

    A while back I made a post on my wild food blog about harvesting seaweed for personal use. And this morning I received a phone call from a chap who wanted to come down to my town and harvest some. And I knew his intentions because he told me.

    This is the problem of writing and spreading the message about foraging wild foods. Some people will see commercial use and rape the land, as has happened in the New Forest with the mushrooms.

    Foraging is about respecting the landbase and its inhabitants both human, and non-human. And only taking what you need for that day. There will always be more, and if there's one thing that I have learned about nature is that in most instances it is extremely abundant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. spider11:33 am

    Taking the wild things for commercial use is also a problem although if it is fairly done it can actually help to sustain wild places. If the places dont generate an income sooner or later someone will want it to - so its better they can be maintained than just get another building site/road/airport/supermarket plot.
    But also my point was that none of us actually NEED wild food in the UK, we just do it for pleasure, whereas the wild animals that live about the place, they dont have the option of going to a shop if they cant find any mushrooms that day. We wont starve - they could.
    I know from my own experience which seems to be differne tfrom Wild Robin's, that there wont alwyas be more, and that nature isnt always abundant. And i was prompted to take these thoughts further when I saw the sign about the deer needing the chestnuts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Diana10:44 pm

    I forage blackberries here because they're everywhere, but I don't think anything else. One of my favorite food memories as a kid was picking wild onions and helping my mom use them in stew. I thought it was the best stew ever!

    ReplyDelete
  4. spider11:12 am

    Ooh I would love to find wild onions. Onions are really delicious especially baked or stewed, so sweet. Will have to investigate further.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life Returns to Notment - and my soul

It has been such a long time, we had so much cold and rain and snow this winter that I have hardly been down to the notment at all. A couple of weeks ago I did go, and collected some baby Alexanders , which went down very well with the family. They are very herbal, like fennel, aniseed or celery but stronger and with a distinct flavour. They work very well chopped up with mashed potato or in an omelette. Then yesterday I went back for a propoer look at the spring life. Many of the fragile little seedlings planted last year in their fleece-poo blankets are still alive if not exactly thriving - including a sage, some fennel cuttings, a feverfew and calamint. Sadly though, the huge ants nest has gone since the breeze blocks were sold to alocal builder who has been able to reuse them. I had been hoping to provide a new home for the ants, but failed to act in time and so now just have to wait and see if they managed to survive or not. I am fairly ignorant about the habits of ants, but
5 comments
Read more

Water, Water, Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Drink

Water, water, everywhere, and it's all a lot of poncey crap from Italy and France, beautifully packaged and carefully marketed, that wends its way into the receptacles of Londoners who use it as prop to help them make believe their city is chic like Paris when it is nothing of the sort, it is just the grubby old capital of a country that obtains its water from across the sea. The point I am trying to make, through this un-dignified rant, is that water is indeed everywhere and it all tastes the bloody same. Perrier, for instance, though I could have easily picked out Badoit, Barisart or Pellegrino, arrives on the shelves of our abundant supermarkets in sexy looking, stylish bottles that are pleasing to the human eye. There is little wrong with this, beauty has its place. The home should be filled with gorgeous things. But it's the human tongue that counts here and mine says the only dissimilar thing its buds can gauge between the continental waters and our very own mountain spri
3 comments
Read more

Snow and Honey

Monday was a day famous for Snow, but for me it was also about honey. I visited Linda who has recently started keeping bees. We processed some honey and she very kindly gave me a pot of golden sweetness at the end. I learnt about mites, and deaths, and bee dancing and pollen and nectar and propolis (the red stuff in the pot - very sticky and it stains the hands, the bees make it from tree resin), and how the bees tenderly care for the grubs and feed them bees milk, and how the worker bees come out of the growing chambers and do housekeeping first for a few days, and then nursing, and then they guard the entrance, and then they start foraging only after all that. The pics show how we scraped the honey out of the combs, avoiding letting pollen and nectar into the honey, and let it drip through a net to separate it from the wax - collecting the was crumbs for melting down and further separation from the honey that is left; propolis; and the honey pots that were filled. 20 in total, from a
4 comments
Read more