Robin Harford's book is an immersive experience into the delights of foraging in Spring, written by one of Britain's most respected foragers.
FORAGE IN SPRING celebrates the top fifteen edible and medicinal wild plants found in March, April and May. It's a comprehensive exploration of their past and present uses as food and medicine.
An invaluable addition to any forager, herbalist, gardener, horticulturist or naturalist's library, providing plant-lovers with a much-needed resource to understanding nature's most useful wild plants.
Inside, you'll discover the forgotten story of Alexanders, Brooklime, Cleavers (Goosegrass), Dandelion, Garlic Mustard, Ground Elder, Ground Ivy, Plantain, Primrose, Ramsons (Wild Garlic), Sea Beet, Sorrel, Sowthistle, Stinging Nettle and Violet.
Plants have stories that reconnect us to the Land and the rest of Nature. As our society evermore disconnects, there is a revivalist movement flourishing like a rhizome. This ancient path of the forager reconnects us to the vital, to wildness, to creation, to what is in effect the very pulse of life itself.
One of the most direct ways to experience this is to consume this wildness. Take it into our bodies, where like a sleeper agent, it lies dormant until you have eaten enough to change the structure of your blood, thereby changing your brain and how you relate to the non-human world.
For it is this simple act. The act of taking wild food and medicine into our body, that in time becomes so transformative.
FORAGE IN SPRING is not a harking back to some naive, romantic vision of how we might once have lived. Instead, these plants' stories are a way to help you sense into the future and understand our ecological function (as a species) within the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robin Harford is a forager, ethnobotanical researcher and wild food educator. He has published numerous foraging guide books.
He established his wild food foraging school in 2008, and his foraging courses were recently voted 1 in the country by BBC Countryfile.
Robin is the creator of eatweeds.co.uk, listed in The Times Top 50 websites for food and drink.
He has travelled extensively, documenting and recording the traditional and local uses of wild food plants in indigenous cultures. His work has taken him to Africa, India, SE Asia, Europe and the USA.
Robin has appeared on national and local radio and television and been featured in BBC Good Food magazine, Sainsbury’s magazine, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, etc.