Forage Yourself Happy

🌹 It’s rosehip season, so obviously I had to make rosehip syrup.

I’ve got two rose bushes growing next to each other and look at the difference between their hips.

One has these big, fat, round rosehips and the other has much smaller, more elongated ones.

There isn’t just one type of rosehip. They’re the fruits of different roses, so they can look surprisingly different.

And when you cut one open, there’s something hiding inside that you really don’t want in your finished syrup...

The seeds are covered in tiny hairs.

Those hairs are irritating and were traditionally used to make itching powder, so this is one wild food where straining properly really matters.

🌹 My rosehip syrup

I used:

• 400g ripe rosehips
• 700ml water
• 200g sugar

I washed the rosehips, removed the stalks and simmered them gently in the water until they had softened and released their flavour and colour.

Then I strained the first extraction before the 2nd stage

But I wasn’t finished with those hips yet.

I did a second extraction, simmering the rosehips again in fresh water and straining them for a second time.

I combined the strained liquid, added the sugar and gently simmered it down into a rich, fruity syrup.

And I was very thorough with the straining because the last thing I want is a mouthful of rosehip hairs! 😂

The finished syrup is lovely over porridge, yoghurt or pancakes, or you can dilute it with water for a fruity drink.

Rosehip season doesn’t last forever, so if you’ve got roses covered in ripe hips, this is a brilliant time to have a go.

🌿 Forage Yourself Happy

This little red berry was collected by the TON during World War II... and there’s a pretty good reason why. 🌹

This is a rosehip.

People have been using them as medicine for hundreds of years, but what really caught my attention was finding actual human trials looking at rosehip powder for osteoarthritis.

Then I went down the rabbit hole of the wartime story.

In 1941, around 200 tons of rosehips were collected in Britain, which works out at roughly 134 million individual rosehips.

They were collected because imported citrus fruit was difficult to get hold of, and rosehips were an important source of vitamin C.

The harvest was then turned into rosehip syrup, particularly for children.

And rosehips aren’t just about vitamin C.

They contain flavonoids, phenolic compounds, fatty acids and a whole range of other plant compounds that researchers are still investigating.

So you’ve got traditional medicine, wartime nutrition and modern clinical research all wrapped up in one little hedgerow fruit.

And honestly, the more I find out about foraging, the more interesting it gets.

Chicken of the woods isn’t just one of the best edible mushrooms you can find in the woods. 🍄

Scientists are finding some seriously interesting compounds inside it.

It’s been traditionally used for things like rheumatism, and research is now looking at its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antibacterial properties.

And then there’s the really interesting bit...

Researchers have been testing compounds from chicken of the woods against cancer cells in the laboratory, including lung and breast cancer cells.

That doesn’t mean eating the mushroom treats cancer. The research is still early and much of it is laboratory work.

But when a mushroom we’ve been picking from trees for generations starts giving scientists this much to investigate, I want to know what else is hiding inside it.

Would you eat chicken of the woods? 🍄

I dug this patch up a few months ago, and now it’s come back with reinforcements 🌼

Turns out dandelion root has a pretty impressive ability to regenerate. And when I started looking into the research on dandelion root, things got even more interesting.

Researchers are looking at its effects on the heart, blood pressure and cellular damage, as well as all the other compounds hiding in this supposedly “ordinary” w**d.

There’s some fascinating research out there. 🌱

Do you let the dandelions grow in your garden?

What does a mushroom sound like? 🍄🌲

I stopped in the woods and listened to this bracket fungus play.

Not a recording of a sound you could hear with your ears. Its electrical activity was translated into music in real time.

Would you have stopped to listen?

Did you know moss can help scientists detect pollution? 🌿

And this little plant has survived exposure to space.

Moss absorbs heavy metals from the environment, so scientists can use it to monitor pollution.

And some moss spores have actually spent nine months outside the International Space Station and survived.

Then there’s its history as a wound dressing, its ability to survive being completely dried out, and the fact that it can help preserve things in peat bogs for thousands of years.

And we just walk past it.

What else should I go and investigate? 🌿

Have you ever used pine resin? 🌲

Because this stuff is seriously useful.

It burns really well, which makes it brilliant for fire lighting and wilderness survival.

You can use it as a natural glue and waterproofing material, and pine resin has also been used traditionally for medicinal purposes.

And then you get into the really interesting stuff...

Pine has a whole load of folklore around protection, cleansing and purification, including old Scottish traditions of burning pine and using pine torches.

So we’ve got fire, survival, medicine, practical uses and a bit of witchy folklore all from one tree.

And this is exactly the sort of thing I love teaching when we’re out in the woods.

Have you ever used it for anything else?

This mushroom was found with a 5,000-year-old man. 🍄

Birch polypore was found amongst the belongings of Ötzi the Iceman, who was discovered frozen in the Alps in 1991.

And here’s the really interesting bit...

Ötzi had intestinal parasites, and birch polypore has a long history of traditional medicinal use, including against parasites.

We can’t know exactly why he was carrying it, but it’s pretty incredible to think that people were using and carrying this fungus over 5,000 years ago.

And we’re still researching it today.