Hedvig, The Blog

One of the permaculture principles is ‘catch and store energy’.  And I feel that July did really evoke that.  Up until July, I had been observing different Introduction to Permaculture that were being run in London and Brighton, and in July, I was asked if I would like to do a bit of teaching.  This course was a different from the normal Naturewise courses, and it took place at the Friends of Tottenham Marshes site, along the canal.  It was an amazing weekend, and as always with these courses, met some amazing people.  But this time stayed in touch with some of them (you’ve gotta love Facebook).

One of the sessions that happens on an intro course is a practical session.  In our planning session there were lots of ideas about what to do: clear a seating area, check out the compost, clear the paths.  I threw in my idea: to go forage for things that were already growing.  We had about 40 mins, or something like that.  Basically not very long.

On the day we asked the participants which practical activity they wanted to do.  I had one volunteer.  John and I meandered off into the marshes, with a few containers and look what we came back with:

And so from this bounty, I decided that I would capture and store this energy, and ended up making a blackberry and elderberry jus.  Okay, so the jelly that I had intended to make didn’t really work, but the taste of this stuff is amazing.  It is so wild.  That is the only way that I can really describe it.  And it is great with yoghurt, on bread (if you’re quick) and ice-cream.

It’s a good reminder in the joys of foraging compared to cultivating.  Made me think I want to be doing more of that in the months and years to come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 11:28 am and is filed under Local food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.