“Eat something wild everyday” (Alex Laird)
So much of Ayurveda is about reconnecting with nature, be it our inner nature through an understanding of the doshas, or outer nature with the world around us. We live in a time with great potential for disconnection, and foraging in the wild is a wonderful way to reconnect with nature and eat seasonally.
I’ve spent the last decade learning about the plants growing around me, through the Ayurvedic lens. I also started this journey from a perspective of sustainability and perhaps laziness as it is much easier to get nettle, cleavers and wild garlic than more unique Ayurvedic herbs from the Himalayas! However, as I walk the same few fields each week of the year, the more I realised how foraging can be so transformative. Ayurveda favours eating food grown locally on your soil, and local healing herbs is best for you, so get out and explore what’s growing on your doorstep. And try to eat something wild everyday.
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I hope to meet you on a foraging workshop soon which can all be booked through Eventbrite links as they become available.
Spring foraging workshops
Sun 17th March, 24th March and 7th April
Spring is the best time to cleanse with bitter, astringent and pungent plants such as dandelion, wild garlic, nettle, hedge mustard and cleavers. These are also all nutrient rich and help us recharge after winter. We'll make some delicious recipes such as a spring tonic herbal vinegar, a pesto, herb salt & wild garlic butter.
Summer foraging workshops
Summer solstice Fri 21st June 2024
The abundance of colourful and delicious plants to forage includes elderflower, wild roses, red clover, chickweed, mugwort, sorrel, yarrow and summer herbs. As well as recipes to eat such as cordials and vinegars, we will use some of these to make skin care products good enough to eat. Summer is also a lovely time to make dried flower crowns.
Autumn foraging workshops
Autumn sees our hedgerows laden with nature’s bounty, rich in vitamin C, polyphenol antioxidants and other nutrients to support winter health. We will forage for elderberries, blackberries, sloes, rosehips and hawthorn berries to make a winter tonic syrup for you to take home. We will also sample rosehip syrup and other autumn makes on the day.
"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."
Robin Harford, Eatweeds.couk
All my workshops:
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Include a comprehensive handout to take home so you can relax on the foraging walk and not worry about capturing notes.
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Include practical ways to use what we find, some of which we will make with samples for you to take home eg: herbal infusions, syrups, vinegars, salts and pestos.
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Include drinks and snacks
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Take place around my home village of Batcombe, Somerset and then back to my kitchen to play
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Are friendly and inclusive places where all are welcome. If you have mobility or other issues which may impact being able to walk across different terrains for an hour please do get in touch to discuss options.
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Welcome dogs on leads are welcome on the walk part.
"The Spring Foraging Workshop was a very enjoyable experience. Whilst harvesting seasonal edible and healing plants in the sunny woods and fields, we were given much information by Joanna - who is extremely knowledgeable about wild plants - and I learnt many new things. Joanna is very generous, and when we got back to the house we were given home made Dandelion cookies and herbal teas using the plants we had been foraging, as well as making pesto, tonic vinegar, and tasting delicious wild garlic butter. We were also given an epic handout with lots of information and recipes. Very good value, and made new friends. I look forward to doing it again in the autumn!"
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Joanna Casey