Spring has definitely arrived and this month has seen us hold session 2 of our 8 month course ‘Wild Things: a year of wild food & medicine’ where we teach about the importance of understanding plant and animal communities to inform our sustainable foraging practice. We also foraged in the wild areas around the teaching room for nettles and other “pioneer plants” to make delicious nettle soup and spring green pesto to share.
We spent a beautiful afternoon with our volunteers at Blackford Glen medicine garden. With newborn Hebridean lambs bleating in the background we couldn’t forget the season. We got busy digging over new stock beds and hanging the beautiful gate. We feel so honoured to have Lisa Laurie, a previous year student, make and hang this for us – what a welcoming opening we now have to our wee garden!
This month has also seen us on one of our many herb walks along the beautiful River Almond with the next walk planned for the 14 May. This gives people a chance to come and learn the historical and current uses of many of our beloved wild plants as both foods and medicines. This herb walk will be in the beautiful Blackford Glen.
Still to come, we are looking forward to hosting our ‘Wayside Remedies’’ on the 4 May at Edinburgh’s beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens, where we will be exploring, in this one day workshop, bioregional herbalism and experiencing the wonders of the abundant and useful plants on our doorstep. We will be making remedies together from those plants often left by the wayside, whilst discussing the issues around importing plants for medicine and the practice of ecologically responsible foraging.
