HAVE YOU EVER EATEN A PIGNUT?

It is raining rabbits and squirrels (no cat, no dog).

The birds, unlike here in the sunshine, are damp and hungry - I wonder if the swallow and martin young will survive as the parents cannot catch food in this weather?

In the garden, wild or tame, there grow wild herbs and other plants that can be harvested.

The stream has abundant watercress - so much it chokes the top pond, and this can only be eaten cooked as the water drains from a field in which cattle and sheep graze - the danger of liver flukes can be ignored but . . . .

We have our patch, or should I say patches, of nettles - vital for wildlife especially insects, a swather of wild garlic and one of ground elder. (The Romans brought that one here.) There are elder trees with flowers and fruit for jam, cordial - elderflower fritters are great, brambles (blackberries), sweet cicely (aniseed flavoured leaves) and Spignel (Meum athamanticum) a dill substitute.

So have you ever eaten a pignut? They are very hot and peppery and grow in the open part of the wood amongst the campion.

The hazels in the hedge that was laid last year will soon have nuts and there grows a wild plum and blackthorn (sloes).

The lovage is out of control and 8 feet high - and still growing.

When we first came my sister-in-law gave us half a dozen damson suckers from their orchard and last year we had our first damsons. The trees were planted traditionally - at the edge of the property except for one near the veg. beds.

The wild roses give us hips - more for itching powder than rose hip syrup. When I was at school we were paid 3 old pence a pound for rosehips and I still have a collectors badge somewhere. Rosehip syrup is full of vitamin C.

Once I made some rowanberry jelly but it was so laxative we had to discard it.

We have not tried collecting birch sap yet and the maple is too small for syrup - one day, perhaps.

Enough, the squirrel has just pulled the bottom of the peanut feeder by the compost heaps - sigh!