Beginner’s guide to foraging

As the weather gets warmer, long walks and time in the garden could provide more than you expect. Here Liz Knight explains how to spot and prepare edible plants

You might view weeds as a garden curse, but if you can get to know them as the food many of them are, you’ll find you have a veg plot without even opening a seed packet.

The most common weeds in our gardens are conveniently like the kind of vegetables we try to grow or buy in the supermarket.

But while there are thousands of edible plants that grow across the world, there are also many toxic ones, so always take care when foraging.

User this guide to help you spot edible plants and follow my expert tips to keep you safe.

NETTLE

Nettles are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet and boast an incredible array of minerals and vitamins. SPOT IT: They often grow in clumps in nitrogen-rich areas, like next to compost heaps or fertile gardens.

Gather the leaves and tips when they are young and tender, before they get tall and woody.

USE IT: Wear rubber gloves while collecting them and plunge them into boiling water for a minute to destroy their sting.

You can turn them into soup, pesto or simply swap them for cooked spinach in any recipe.

DOCK LEAVES

Dock leaves are part of the same plant family as rhubarb and sorrel, and the stems share their sour flavour. The leaves are slightly bitter when they are young in spring. SPOT IT: Docks are perennials that emerge in clumps of large oval leaves.

They grow nearly everywhere and if they were in your garden last year, they most probably will appear again. USE IT: Like nettles, you can use dock leaves as a swap for greens like spinach. The sour stems are great for jam as they are crammed with pectin and help turn fruit like strawberries

into the perfectly set preserve.

DANDELION

If wild plants were in the boxing ring, dandelions would be pretty evenly matched with the nettle for nutritional power. Plus you can use the whole of both plants. But unlike nettles, dandelions are bitter, apart from the honey-flavoured flowers.

SPOT IT: Dandelions grow from long tap roots and, like nettle and dock, appear each year. The plant forms a rosette of distinctive toothed leaves. In early spring, dandelion flowers burst open, making them easy to find.

USE IT: If you do not like bitter flavours, you can still get the benefits of dandelion by cooking the leaves in a few changes of water.

But if you like your food with a bitter edge, use young leaves in salads or wilt older ones before mixing them with fried onion, chili, lemon and oil. Serve as a salad with bread and soft cheese.

GROUND ELDER

Ground elder is rich in vitamin C and minerals, and was traditionally used to help relieve the symptoms of gout, hence its other name – goutweed.

Be very careful when collecting because other members of its family are deadly toxic.

SPOT IT: If you have ground elder, you will probably have swathes of it since it bullies its way through flower beds.

In spring it sends up three sets of baby leaves on each slender, hairless leaf stem before growing hollow stems that are covered in white carrot-like flowers by early summer.

USE IT: Ground elder tastes like a perfumed parsley and is delicious in vibrant, herby salads like tabbouleh.

BITTERCRESS

Bittercress is part of the mustard family and tastes like the mustard and cress seedlings grown on damp tissue. SPOT IT: It grows swiftly, suddenly appearing in fertile, weeded areas such as flower beds, vegetable plots and plant pots. It has tiny watercress-like leaves, little white flowers and long seed pods.

It grows in a low rosette, varying in size from a small plant no bigger than your palm to the size of a lettuce.

USE IT: Contrary to its name, it is not at all bitter, which makes it perfect in salad, chopped up into mashed potatoes, in salsa or egg sandwiches.

CHICKWEED

Chickweed has been used by many cultures as part of their medicine and food for thousands of years as it is dense in nutrition yet mild in flavour. SPOT IT: If you grow lettuce, you’ll probably find chickweed spreading its way through like a mat of stringy little stems, with leaves like mouse ears and tiny white flowers.

Lettuce and chickweed often grow together, as they both thrive away from direct heat and in damp soil. USE IT: Rich in vitamin C, chickweed has a mild and slightly nutty flavour. It’s the wild food version of a butterhead

lettuce, and is perfect in a salad.

Forage: Wild Plants to Gather, Cook and Eat by Liz Knight, illustrated by Rachel Pedder-Smith (£19.99, Laurence King )