Celebrating seasonal, homegrown, and wild food
As the weather turns cooler and the frosts start to creep in at night, for most people the main foraging “season” is coming to a close. Of course, the notion of a defined foraging season would have been nonsense to our ancestors who were relying on gathering their food from the wild in order to [...]
The joy of autumn is difficult to describe. Is it the leaf colours, the weather cooling, mushroom gathering, warming up around a campfire and how it feels all the more magical now the air is crisp and the dark evenings draw in? This year it feels accentuated by the sunny weather we've been enjoying after [...]
It's October again. The weather is getting cooler and the leaves are slowly turning their beautiful shades of orange and red. It's a time to savour the last of the vibrancy of summer, and to start getting used to the darker evenings and crisp mornings. The jackets are out, the gloves are on, and scarves [...]
The beginning of December brings the start of meteorological winter, and the recent snow across much of the UK has clearly sealed the deal - Winter is here. There's nothing better on a cold day than a brisk walk and returning to your cosy home for a warming bowl of soup or stew. This venison [...]
For me, this winter is going to be a time to cultivate a deeper appreciation of the small things, especially home comforts and the occasional treat. During the recent lockdown, and really since the first lockdown in March, we have made it a tradition to go for a walk on a Saturday to our local [...]
The blog has been focusing on recipes for a while, but I've been keen to share a bit more on wider aspects of our connection with nature and the cycle of the seasons besides the seasonal food, foraging and food growing. I love to read, and especially when the nights start to draw in I [...]
No I haven't gone mad, nor has our current self-isolation driven us to eating our bulbs for next spring - thankfully we do have plenty of food. A bulb lasagne is just layering up spring bulbs in a container so that you get a lovely succession of spring blooms as one type finishes and the [...]
Autumn is a beautiful season full of colour and feelings of warmth as the days grow shorter and the weather cools down. One of my favourite places to experience the essence of autumn is in the New Forest in Hampshire which, as you can imagine, is just stunning at this time of year. We spent [...]
It's been a year of firsts for our allotment as we approach the end of our first full growing season. We've grown so many things for the first time this year including sweetcorn, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, radishes and a variety of different beans. Florence fennel is a wonderful vegetable and one that I didn't have [...]
I know there hasn't been much of a gap since my previous allotment post, but autumn is most definitely upon us so it felt like the appropriate time for an autumn update - winter will be here soon enough! Since my last update in August we've been enjoying our first homegrown onions, more dahlias, plenty [...]
Plot & Lane 