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For most people in the UK early forays into foraging begin with blackberries, those ubiquitous black beauties that spring up all over the place in late August.
Sadly for most people, this is where it stops too and my mission is to change that fact.
I work in an office, hunched over a computer most days and consequently I insist on getting out of the office for a healthy walk in my lunch hour.
After a fairly short period of time you run out of roads to go down and begin to explore footpaths, fields and other nooks and crannies.
If you keep your eyes open, you begin to become more aware of changes according to the season.
As a family, we decided to make more of a go of the foraging and started by observing the various blossoms to help us identify the trees.
We put them on a map so that we would not forget the locations.
Plum trees were everywhere, then the cherry, apple and pear blossom revealed the vast amounts of potential for future picking.
I decided to blog our activities to document our progress; this further engaged the children and made it simpler to pass on the information to other likeminded families.
It’s autumn now and it’s getting cooler at night.
More importantly, there is a harvest out in the city waiting to be picked and processed, so I am currently very busy during my free time.
Apples need to be picked (fortunately my son can now climb like a monkey) eaten or turned into cider.
Nuts need to be collected (my daughter loves doing this) and squirreled away for the winter months, chutney needs to be cooked (my wife is Head Chef) and put into jars and wine needs to be bottled (no prizes for guessing who this duty falls to).
When I started my blog I needed a suitable moniker, there were lots of urban foragers out there already but they were all interested in things that most people consider weeds; this didn’t seem very accessible to people with young families.
We mainly pick: plums, cherries, blackberries, pears, apples, hazelnuts, walnuts and chestnuts, they are easy to recognise and process.
I chose to call myself the Urbane Forager - as soon as I thought of it - I knew it was right - the extra e really did it for me and it distinguished me from the people living in the woods.
It changed the meaning and created an immediate fun brand.
We came into contact with Alan when he asked if he could pick the ‘Red Devil’ apples at St Mary’s - we were delighted as they sometimes get thrown through the windows of the Church. You may also have seen him in the Echo - first of all being banned, and then being allowed to pick blackberries on the Common!