Yet again I have been wowed by how much food 9 people can learn about and harvest in 2 hours from Potager's wilder, as yet uncultivated areas.
Yesterday a t 3pm (leaving my co pilot Wendy in control of the cafe) I greeted the 'ladies that forage' . Rachel took them to the nearest Cornish hedge where they gathered penny wort and bramble buds for their salad bags while I chopped the dried dandelion roots that I had dug and scrubbed earlier in the week and put them to roast in the oven for coffee on our return.
Settling in for the duration, ladies that forage chatted around the hawthorn trees in the lower field and picked haws until we had what turned out to be 4lb.
Heart shaped hogweed seed biscuits, dandelion coffee and sage tea awaited our return.
Nettles were blanched, hazel nuts cracked, herbs chopped and haws boiled in vinegar.
Haw ketchup was the highlight of the evening for me along with the reminder of how much we can achieve collectively .
Thank you to all those that came yesterday, and a big thank you to Rachel Lambert for leading us so enthusiastically and knowledgeably.