Wild Garlic

[Silver Ether]

I freeze it and use it in soups, sauces and still able to make pesto with it ... Picked some last week to freeze and use in salad. Picked more and made pesto with it last night

[floraadora]

My dehydrator arrived yesterday. I'm going to dehydrate a load and put in a jar.

[Shirley]

My chooks seem to have developed a taste for my clump of wild garlic

[floraadora]

Because I can store more of it than I can pesto. Then I can use it in lots of different ways too.

I'm slightly worried about the economy so I bought the dehydrator so that I can stash loads of fruit and veg and dehydrated fruit/veg takes up very little space.

[Shirley]

I think that's a good idea Flora - do please let us know how you get on.

[shell]

you might start a new craze,garlic flavoured eggs

[boboff]

We live by the river and the Garlic is everywhere.
It's amasing how it can grow, flower and reproduce just before all the trees get their leaves and block out all the light. It's now all yellow and dying. I am not sure whether it likes shade, or that it just grows before the leaves come on the trees.

[tiggy]

Im saving seed from mine,its still green but its going over.

[Millymollymandy]

I think the latter, it tends to herald spring here in Wales - definitely before the trees come into leaf.

I think so too, it's the same with bluebells - they need the light to grow, flower, set seed etc then once the leaves come on the trees it's too dark for them so they go dormant until the cycle starts again the next year.

[Vajk]

A lot of the woods around here have huge patches covered in wild garlic - smells great and it seems to transplant well too (make sure you get a big clump of the bulbs and surrounding soil).
It does prefer shade though, on the few days we have had sunshine it has looked really miserable (almost laying down flat) - but its perky today as the weather is cr**!

Erm.....technically speaking it is illegal to dig up wild plants by the root. Why not just leave them where they are and go pick them when they're in season? Or buy them from a garden centre or the internet if you want to plant some in your own garden.

In what country?

I wouldn’t tolerate this one single bit.

It’s mankind’s oldest RIGHT to hunt and gather. It’s not a privilege, and certainly no other human being can take that right away from us. People may argue about the hunting part, and that’s another can of worms entirely, but to say that we as human beings have no right to go out and gather our own food, and that it is ILLEGAL to use nature for what nature was intended… that’s just nuts.

People are animals. Animals live off the land. Why have we forgotten this principle?

If you don't want to dig up the plant, then wait until the fall and collect the SEEDS. That should be more acceptable to people who are more concerned about adhering to some draconian local ordinance than they are about exercising their natural rights.

[Vajk]

I could smell some when I was in the lake district las week, but could not find it.
We did find some wild garlic-mustard though(jack of the hedge?) and wild black mustard.

I cooked with a bit of wild thyme, (tastes lovely, particularly the flowers.) and sorrel because we found places with plenty of these.

now I've got "Food for free" it's great I'm gonna wonder off to all the hedgerows near me and find all the food i'd never noticed.

That's the spirit! :D

I heartily encourage everyone to do the same.

I never knew what was in my own front lawn, and now it's like a grocery aisle. Except there are more vitamins and nutrients in the plants in my lawn (Dandelion, Plantain, Chickweed, etc.) than in the entire non-organic section of the supermarket! ;)