A homemade bee hotel has been on my to-do list for quite a while now, I was originally going to make one out of bamboo canes and then create a little wooden frame to put them inside. However, the inspirational world of social media has given me a much better idea and I just couldn’t wait to go out and pick some… Common Hogweed! Now I must confess I never knew anything about this plant before apart from that it lines countryside roads and looks a little like a large cow parsley. Infact the stems are hollow and make great homes for leaf cutter bees! So off I went on my bicycle to forage some large common hogweed stems and I managed to find the mother load down a little country lane in my village (and I made a note to go back and forage the elderberries too!)
I’m going to cut them down to around 6 inches in length and leave them in the shed to dry out. Alternatively you can wait until later in the year when the whole plant has dried before foraging the stems, I decided to let them dry off inside incase the plants rotted in the rain (and we are forecast a lot of that during the next week!) The first stage of my bee hotel is in process, now all I need to do is make a little wooden frame to hold the stems, add a pretty slate roof, and give it a lick of paint and then all those leaf cutter bees whizzing around the allotment should be happy.
Now whilst I was out collecting the common hogweed stems I decided to go and look at a tree which my Dad had told me about. He brought a little fruit home one day after walking the dog and after lots of research we came to the conclusion is was a cherry plum, I was so excited! We loaded up the common hogweed stems onto our bikes and cycled down to a set of garage lock ups in the village where the cherry plum tree was. I just so happened to have brought a little egg basket with me and we managed to fill it up to the brim with those juicy little plums. I noticed there were loads more higher up out of our reach so I made a note to come back with a ladder (and I managed to get another basket full!) I’ll be making some cherry plum jam and a tarte very soon so stayed tuned for recipes!
I have come to the conclusion that foraging is one the most fun things to do! It’s food… for free! I have never felt happier then returning home with a basket full of cherry plums and a bag full of common hogweed stems. It’s amazing that I’ve been living in this village all my life and never noticed all the elderflowers, plums, sloe berries and black berries that are dotted around. I’ll be off foraging next weekend for elderberries and blackberries, everything seems to be so early this year due to all the sunny weather we’ve been having. Not that I’m complaining, it just means more jam for the store cupboard and more yummy desserts
12 thoughts on “Foraging in the Village”
Love the bee hotel idea…must give it a try with the kids. We had solitary bees on our plot while I was digging the ground over to put my potatoes in…I felt really bad as they could not settle due to the fact I kept disturbing the soil. We put a small hotel up but could do with a few more I think…will definitely give this a go!
As a matter of fact I had solitary bees making homes in the soil in my fruit cage bed. Hopefully they’ll be impressed with this new house I’m making 🙂 I just love the fact you’re using dried up old plants to make homes for insects!
Know exactly what you about the amazing anount of “food for free” that is all around us but that we don’t even notice. As i write i’m looking out of my window at a tree full of elderflower berrys - I must get out and harvest them! Great idea on how to build a bug house btw thanks for sharing 🙂
Lucky you! I noticed some elderberries on my forage at the weekend and just can’t believe how early everything is! I’m off foraging for sloe berries this evening and might pick up a few blackberries along the way. The cupboards will soon be fit to burst 🙂
It’s only after we experience the amount of work that goes into growing food that we can truely appreciate wild food 🙂 I come from a country (the Czech Republic) where foraging is still pretty common and thanks to my parents I learned to recognize many kinds of wild edibles. We picked a lot of wild mushrooms during our holiday and ate them almost daily, but sadly there were no blueberries this year.
That is so true, it’s only when I got my own allotment that I became interested in foraging and now I can’t get enough of it! You’re very lucky to have knowledgable parents, I’m still learning as I go along and probably missing loads of edible foods in the village. I have a few books which are helpful but it would be great to write it all down for future generations 🙂
Hi Katie,
Firstly, it is wonderful to hear that you started foraging! I forage all the time; the surrounding fields and mountains are full of abandoned orchards full of fruit trees ,and they are also brimming with edible weeds and mushrooms. I never buy most of the fruit like pears, grapes, figs, plums, blackberries, persimmons and nuts like walnuts and hazelnuts, I forage them form the nearby fields. So congrats for your newly discovered interest and I hope you will do it more often.
Secondly,I want to say: when you paint the bee hotel, please try to use an organic paint or just give it a lick of linseed oil. I vehemently detest all the chemical-laden paints.
Finally, your dungaree is SO cute 🙂 I wish I can get my hands on a secondhand one, as I never buy new clothes. Sadly there are no secondhand shops here in Italy, so I get my clothes from my friend who lives in London. When I visit her once every 2 years, I get all the old clothes she doesn’t need anymore. But she never uses dungarees! 🙁
Oh that sounds absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately I live in a little village that is expanding so there isn’t much to forage but it is still great fun. Theres sloes, blackberries, raspberries, plums, elder, cobnuts etc. I
I will definately be using friendly paint for the bee hotel 🙂
Thank you so much, I do love my dungarees and I wear them all the time. Maybe you could sew your own? or patch some together using second hand trousers and a top?
That’s a good idea. I’ll try to patch a top and an old jeans together, even though I’m so bad at sewing; one of the things I need to learn.
Be careful with Hogweed. The Giant Hogweed is poisonous and can cause severe skin ‘burns’. The Common Hogweed can also cause skin ‘burns’ especially in bright sunlight. You can however eat the young shoots of Common Hogweed, cooked like spinach.
Thanks for the advice, I didn’t have any problems when picking and it’s not for eating. I’ll be using it to make a bee hotel with 🙂
You still have to be careful when handling it, best wear gloves. If you get the sap on your skin and then it is exposed to sunlight it can cause severe blistering which can last for months.
http://www.nonnativespecies.org/index.cfm?pageid=152
Common Hogweed is not so bad but can have the same effect, they think the toxins are produced in the plant in defence against a fungal attack on its roots, so not all plants exhibit the problem.