cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12446757

> ! > > ! > > ! > > Just watch out for the mosquitoes, ticks, flies, leeches, thorns, and poison ivy!

Picture by Tero Karppinen

This weekend I went on a drive with my old man to a local bookshop picked up a copy of The Forager's Calendar by John Wright, hoping to get some guidance on what I could forage in January around my village. I live among Heath and Moorland, so a lot of things that might be common elsewhere in this lowland temperate rainforest in North West Europe might not be common at home. Heath soils are sandy and well drained, in the moorlands I'm not sure, is peat very rich? There must be good soil somewhere because historically the village was a self-sufficient farming community. But... even though it's a harsh landscape it's the Heath that feels like home to me. Maybe it's because it's Common.

So I managed to find a few things that might grow in January here by looking up our local trees in the index. I worked out what the local trees were by buying a Collins Gem copy of the aptly titled Trees for a couple of quid (International English trans: £2 more or less) which was really useful. It turns out the Heath is mainly Scots Pines and Silver Birch, and elsewhere the dominant, or at least my favourite, tree is the mighty Oak. Aaah.. the Oak..

I suppose because I was looking at trees the foraging selection I came across was mainly fungus. I didn't recognise any of them and none of them seemed to appear in January. That was until I was almost at the very end, and I saw a picture of some reddy brown mushrooms whose caps made them look like they'd been in a fight. I was sure I'd spotted some sadder looking ones under a clump of Scots Pines at the top of the hill that looks over my village. The ones in the book are called Trumpet Chanterelles, and they're apparently pretty tasty. But the ones I saw looked kind of sickly and slimy, so I don't think I'll try and eat them. This book isn't an identification book anyway, so I wouldn't want to pick anything to eat based off of The Forager's Calendar book alone. If that wasn't discouraging enough, we've had a cold snap the last couple of days and my old man reckons that the frost would have seen the mushrooms off to wherever it is mushrooms go after the frost.

So it looks like my January plans to forage in my beloved Heath are scuppered before they've even started. So I suppose I should start looking towards the Moorlands and working out what grows there.

How are things where yous are? What's growing around you and do you know if you can eat it???