Edible landscapes

Gardens can be hugely educational, argues John, if we use them to teach our children about their nutritional benefits

Gardens can help us teach children about good nutrition while they learn gardening skills

Life appears to move forward at an ever increasing pace. My early childhood days are unrecognizable in today’s society. We never knew about information technology and only the better off had television sets, so everyone played outdoors. We had woods nearby and hills (Sidlaw Hills) to climb, which were only a two-hour walk from our housing estate (St. Mary’s). No-one knew of any dangers, and no-one came to any harm, but we did learn a lot about nature and got an amount of outdoor exercise.

Older kids passed down their knowledge to us so we learned about blaeberry picking, collecting wild strawberries, picking sheep sorrel from the woodland floor (botanically called Rumex acetosella, but we called it surix) and on our bicycle trips to the raspberry fields in Longforgan we would stop under the cherry trees along the Perth road and eat whatever fruit was ripe.

As we got older we never forgot our childhood adventures but looked into this natural edible landscape with greater interest.

As children from the town we took every opportunity to get into the countryside both for play as well as earning some money picking raspberries, strawberries and potato picking in autumn.

Edible landscapes are being created within schools as well as other outdoor areas

Looking back, you could say it must have been hard work for children, and we must have been poor, but it was really great fun while we were young and fit and the extra money boosted our income (pocket money).

Today life is very different with all our children’s needs close at hand as long as they have the latest mobile phone.

The countryside is no longer viewed as a place of discovery due to it being much easier to travel all over the world. Plus, our food needs are available at the supermarket, so children never really learn how food is produced.

This lack of outdoor education is being recognised, and local communities and schools are beginning to address this problem.

Edible landscapes are being created within schools as well as other outdoor areas. Although in its infancy it is becoming very popular with schools, and some communities are getting involved in planting up outdoor landscapes using a wide range of edible plants, both for use and for education.

Children love to handle seeds, cuttings, plants and learn how they are used for dyes, basket making, fibres, brushes, fuel, soap, insecticide and the benefits of green manures on cultivated land.

Forest gardens are another development on a larger scale within a woodland setting, but plants chosen are useful or edible and form a woodland flora from the taller canopy trees such as walnut, sweet chestnut and edible lime trees to the forest floor layers such as blueberries and wild garlic.

There are also many edible plants that prefer a pond or bog garden from watercress to reeds, cranberries, white water lily, and other plants that have edible rhizomes, leaves, fruit and seeds.

We grow apples, pears, plums and cherries in our gardens, but we can also diversify with mulberries, hazelnuts, saskatoons, chokeberries, quince, medlar, fuchsia, figs and hardy outdoor grapes.

Brambles, Tayberries and loganberries make excellent climbers, and currants, raspberries and gooseberries will form good hedges.

Plants with edible leaves include lime trees, nettles, sorrel, bamboo (shoots), campanula, and wild garlic, and the list of herbs and medicinal plants is enormous.

Many herbs have medicinal value but rosemary, thyme, sage and mint are used for flavouring many meat dishes and kale and Swiss chard are excellent in a stir fry.

We encourage our children to try out a bit of gardening with growing pumpkins and sunflowers but there is another world just waiting to be discovered with plants and their uses.