{"id":171,"date":"2010-06-01T08:14:44","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T07:14:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2022-09-14T11:04:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T10:04:43","slug":"wild-food-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wild-food-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Food June"},"content":{"rendered":"

June is one of the few times I like being English. It is a time for strawberries and cream, Wimbledon, the Glastonbury festival and weekend pagans drinking heavily at their local standing stones. It is a month where you want the rain for your garden but you don\u2019t want it in the amount it can fall.\u00a0 The May blossoms have died back but are replaced with the floral displays of Meadowsweet, the oxeye daisy and the first decent show of fruits of the year.<\/p>\n

Wild Cherry – Prunus avium<\/h2>\n

I watch cherry trees with anticipation all through June waiting to be rewarded by their red or dark purple fruits.\u00a0 I have found you usually can spot a Cherry tree by the litter of stones and droppings around it indicating that an avian visitor may have just beaten you to your prize.\u00a0 The small fruits can be slightly bitter due to amounts of cyanide, which can also contained in larger amounts in the seed or pip. For this reason you should never really eat the seed or any exceptionally bitter fruits.\u00a0 I often mix them with other fruits in season, such as wild strawberry or raspberry in a fruit salad or remove the stones and add them to a smoothie.\u00a0 My favourite however is to drop them into some cheap alcohol with some sugar and leave them to make alcoholic cherries and a cherry liqueur.<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Habitat \u2013 Edge of fields, around housing estates (especially old council estates), gardens, parks<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Parts Used \u2013 Fruit<\/p>\n

Mallow Malva – Silvestris<\/h2>\n

The common mallow, the tree mallow and the hollyhock all have edible leaves which, as they can taste a little like bland rice paper, benefit from being mixed with other salad leaves in season, such as rocket, sorrel, charlock, jack-by-the-hedge. The leaves of all mallows can be used as an egg substitute and therefore make a useful food for vegans. By June wild mallows are in full flower and their cultivated cousins, the Hollyhock sometimes give their first floral display by the tail end of the month.<\/p>\n

Habitat \u2013 Gardens, in municipal planting schemes, in parks, waste ground<\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Parts Used \u2013 Leaves, immature seed pods<\/p>\n

Wild Marjoram\/Wild Oregano – Origanum vulgare<\/h2>\n

\u2018It\u2019s good on pizza and in soups you know<\/em><\/p>\n

but is it Marjoram or Oregano?\u2019- <\/em>Stephen Stranger<\/p>\n

There is a lot of confusion over the naming of this plant especially between Europeans and Americans, a little like the Elk and the Moose.\u00a0 Origanum Vulgare in America is often called Oregano rather than Wild Marjoram but it is by and large the same plant. Botanists have claimed that the name Oregano has been linked to so many varying plants that it should only really describe the flavour rather than the plant itself (1)<\/p>\n

Whatever you want to call the plant it goes great on pizza or in most vegetable dishes. It is often better used dried rather than fresh. Drying is easy to achieve by hanging the plant upside down from a window handle.<\/p>\n