Seasonal Stinging Nettle Beer

The whole world has changed significantly since my last post. I hope you and your families are all staying safe, well and ideally in your homes.

My allotment gets a wealth of Stinging Nettles around this time of year, which are used in many traditional recipes, they can even be made into twine or woven into fabric. However, I wanted to make something seasonal that would take a couple of weeks to mature, but also be something that we could enjoy, even if we had to stay home a lot.

I have always fancied making Stinging Nettle Beer; it is a very simple recipe and anyone with the basic equipment can try it. You can safely tinker with both the amounts and method, according to your equipment and requirments. I found making this very satisfying and enjoyed the process so much that I did it all twice, and may do it again soon.

Equipment

• Gloves!
• Large carrier bag or similar
• Bucket
• Demijon, barrel or brewing bucket
• Suitable pressure safe bottles
  

Ingredients

• 1kg Stinging Nettles - approximately one large carrier bag stuffed to bursting.
• 400g - 1kg Sugar - the strength of the beer will depend on the amount you use, you could mke it weaker still, like ginger beer for kids
• 1 x Lemon juiced
• 1 x gallon of water (I used a demijon)
• 25 g Cream of Tartar
• Yeast
  

Method

1. Pick the stinging nettles (using gloves), collect only the tips, or top 6" of the plants and stuff them into your big carrier bag. Pack them down well, it takes about 30 minutes.
2. Boil the water and gradually add the nettles, they will eventually boil down and should all fit in. I used a large preserving pan, but you can adapt the amounts according to your needs and available equipment.
3. Let the nettles simmer for 15 minutes, then strain the liquid off. I used a collander over a bucket to achieve this and it worked very well.
4. Add the sugar, Lemon juice and Cream of Tartar to the liquid and stir untill all disolved.
5. Leave the liquid to cool to body temperature and sprinkle the yeast on top.
6. At this point I added the liquid to my demijon but you could also leave it in a bucket covered with a muslin cloth / tea towel.
7. Leave to ferment for a week
8. Siphon into bottles and leave for a further week.
9. Drink!
   

   

   My Improvised Standing Work From Home Station

Stay Safe and Keep Healthy

Apocalyptic - Optimistic

It has been an interesting and very busy time since my last post. We have had serious floods in the UK and terrifying fires in Australia and the Amazon, all caused by climate change, brought on by human activity. 

Now we have plague, the new Coronavirus has taken our planet by storm. Next it seems we may be threatened with imminent economic collapse, in some areas, as a result.

However, I am an optimist, so let us look on the bright side, while we still can. Every cloud has a silver lining; NASA satellite images have detected a dramatic fall in nitrogen dioxide levels over China, since the shutdown caused by the virus. I also predict significant decreases in some of the most polluting luxury industries, aviation and cruise liners to name just two obvious ones.

No one really knows what the knock on effects of all these seemingly apocalyptic threats will be, but Spring  cirtainly seems to be coming around as normal, albeit somewhat wetter than normal. 

What staggers me, is the amount of fear and immediate action over the virus, compared to the inaction and disinterest, over the far more significant threat of climate change.  Sadly, I can only put this down to individual selfishness, and a complete lack of foresight.  

I'm still seeing and smelling the blossom on the trees and enjoying the daffodils on the roadsides. After this, I'll be looking forward to a break in the clouds, feeling the sun on my back, getting my shorts back on and getting out to gather some Elderflowers as Summer creeps around the corner.

Stay Safe, and Ware a Mask!

Spring Blows Hot and Cold

February was playing games. It was frosty, it was foggy and it has also been unseasonably sunny and warm.

We have been out in hats coats and gloves and we have been out in shorts and t-shirts.

Plum Blossom is filling the hedgerows with a white bloom, Blackthorn and Hawthorn will soon follow. 

Meanwhile Daffodils and Crocus are painting the road sides and gardens. Flashes of colour to fill in between the new growth of trees and bushes.

We have been on some lovely walks, including down Hurst Spit and around the Keyhaven nature reserve. 

When the sun has been hot and the tide good, we have been messing about on the river with boats from St. Deny's Boat Club.

 

March looks set to start with a good old fashioned storm. How it will turn out after that, only time will tell, but I hope the prevailing wind stays Southwesterly.

Spring Blossom

Spring is definitely here now, and my lunchtime walks are filled with wonder. Everything seems to be happening at once. 

I spotted a lovely pair of kestrels, soaring above in the azure. I decided to take some photos to remember the day.

Blackthorn, spires blooming and towering skyward. Pretty but also prickly.

A delightful and very old ornamental Cherry blossoming by the roadside.

A healthy looking cluster of Plum blossom in a hedgerow.

Elder, buds breaking through already, getting ready to begin flowering any day soon.

the Wight Stuff

Snow does not settle very often in Southampton, due to our proximity to the coast and possibly the extra geothermal energy that is used to generate heat for some parts of the city. However, the storm dubbed the Beast from the East did its best, closing many schools and roads. This left children free to sledge down the steepest hills and fill each others clothes with the freezing white stuff. Lovely!

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that most children will be fascinated by dinosaurs and fossils. My son has always been interested in gem stones and geodes. We visited the Isle of Wight, on a wet and windy March day, to try our hands at some amateur palaeontology. We had the added advantage of a brilliant guide from the Island Gems company.

Felicity, our guide, informed us about the unique geology of this part of the coast and then told us what we should look out for. The weather did not dampen out enjoyment one jot, and or the next two hours we wandered the beach, collecting interesting finds and checking them with Felicity. 
We found fossilised wood embedded with glittering Fool's Gold, dinosaur bones, shells, fish bones, sponges and even a piece of turtle shell (all fossilised). The highlight of the tour was probably the gigantic Iguanadon foot casts that littered the beach, but we could not take these home, unlike our personal hoards of fossils and geodes.

A couple of years ago we visited the Oceanography open day last year, where we met some friends of the forager, who had visited the Agglestone after reading about it here and they kindly directed us to a beach on the Island that is known for these sparkling gems. We did not have time to reach it this time, we had to visit a model village, but we will be returning with tents and hammers later this year.

Cherry Blossom and Bluebells

The transition from Winter to Spring this year has seemed indistinct and largely unimpressive. It has been relatively warm and very stormy and this has affected the timing of flowering plants but the thing that really matters now, is that it's warm enough for me to be wearing shorts again.

Blackthorn Blossom Fizzing in the Hedgerows

Bluebells are flooding the woodlands, like some kind of alchemical spell, and the trees are bursting magisterially into their full leafy green grandeur. We took a wonderful walk up on Farley Mount, to see the equine monument there. The pyramid/rocket shaped tribute is supposedly built on top of a Bronze age tumulus, there are several in the vicinity. 

This area is a fabulous spot for a spring picnic - skylarks sing aloft and swallows swoop over the fields below. On a clear day, you can see all the way to the Isle of Wight and easily identify Southampton docks and the New Forest.

As we ate our sandwiches my daughter noticed something closer by, a tiny lizard had popped out to sunbathe, right by our feet. We explored further, into the delightful Parnholt Wood, where the Bluebells are in full spate and searched for an ancient bowl barrow that a friend had told me about.

Cherry bloom is now flowering along the bare spindly branches everywhere and the Apple & Pear blossom is starting to appear too. Naturally, you will need to check back in a month or so to ensure that the flowers are turning into immature fruit and this is one of the reasons that I favour tree spotting on my regular routes. 

If you examine the Falling Fruit map, you will notice an abundance of locations about my home town of Southampton, as well as around my work places of Hedge End and Segensworth, where I habitually walk during my lunch hours.

Look Closely in this Puddle

Now is the perfect time to spot where those secret fruit trees have been hiding and we will be leading some local blossom walks soon, so check back regularly for details, which are very likely to be at short notice.

Blossom Sequence Mnemonic Competition

Now, there's a post title I didn't imagine ever writing, but you will be pleased to hear that there is a good reason for it. When Spring arrives, we always use blossom in the trees to help us easily locate and identify fruit trees. We then check back later to look for signs of maturing fruit.

To help remember the sequence that fruit trees bloom in we designed an acronym PBCAP (Plum, Blackthorn, Cherry, Apple, and Pear) Plum normally flowers around March (I have seen Plum blossom in January this year), the others follow in quick succession. The fruit of the Blackthorn is the Sloe so the B could be replaced with an S.

We remember this by using a mnemonic Perceived Blossom Calculates Abundant Produce but this is unwieldy. If you can think of a better one, send it in or write your comments below, the composer of the best will be duly announced and the lucky winner will receive a free copy of our beautiful book, the Urbane Forager: Fruit and Nuts for Free.

As a footnote I will remind readers that a mnemonic does not need to have anything to do with the subject matter, it only needs to be memorable. Richard Of York Fought Battle In Vain is a popular example for recalling colours of the rainbow or Naughty Elephants Spray Water for children learning the compass. So we could have Panthers Black Creep And Pounce or whatever

Spring into Action

It's 7:15am, my train has been cancelled and it's raining. Another train will come but I choose to cycle the 11 miles to my employment, through April's finest showers. A"man" in a black Audi tries to run me over halfway through my journey; hopefully he is still stuck in traffic somewhere. As I work, I sit in my office in the midst of the massive, soulless industrial estate that is Segensworth, near Fareham. I occasionally gaze wistfully out of my window at what is possibly the least inspiring view I have ever had to endure.

Toward midday the grim grey clouds gradually break and the sweet azure begins to brighten my mood. Suddenly my heart is dramatically lifted as I spot and instantly recognise a Kite, slowly gliding over the drab grey buildings opposite. Lunchtime looms and as always, I get out of the building. I jog out of the estate, dodge the speeding motorists and slip through a hedge. Within 10 minutes I am standing in a field and my tightly coiled mind begins to unwind.

I find a footpath and follow it. I spot Plum blossom and Blackthorn too. Most of the white flowers in the hedgerows now are Blackthorn, so I predict a good year for Sloes. I make a mental note to add the locations to the fruit map. Further into my walk, I spot some old neglected Apple trees, or are the Pears? It's hard to tell in Spring. I also note several Cherry trees about to burst into bloom. After a brisk 10 minute walk I reach my intended target, a ruined abbey that I have noticed on a map, it is pretty impressive. In the grounds I locate several fruit trees, one of which is covered in delightful flowers, I think/hope it is a Peach tree.

After a short explore and a wander about it is time to return. I retrace my footsteps back to my office and work but now I am rejuvenated and refreshed. I'm looking forward to my journey home - It's a Bank Holiday weekend coming up. I'm looking forward to stepping off the treadmill, ricocheting about with the family, cultivating our allotment and hopefully scoffing an Easter egg.

As a sad postscript to this little tale, the large field that I got into via the hedge is shortly to be "developed" into an enormous care village. So, yet another green field site is to be decimated for private profit. I spotted a planning notice pinned to a lamp-post (hidden in a hedge where there was no pavement). I really cannot understand how these decisions can get past the local councillors. Although, we could probably guess...

Eclipsing the Equinox

There might not be much to harvest from the hedgerows at this time of year but there is still plenty to get excited about.

The weekend of the 21^st 22^nd is when the Vernal (Spring) Equinox occurs. This is the first time of the year when the days and nights are of equal length; the second time is the Autumnal Equinox. The Vernal Equinox is also the time of year in the UK when the clocks get moved forward, so we loose and hour of sleep, which I could do without personally.

More excitingly, this week on Friday morning 20^th March in the UK we will experience a partial solar eclipse, (almost total sounds more fun). In Southampton (where we live) this will occur at about 09:28 with about 83% of the sun covered. Do not try to use sunglasses or anything else; looking at the sun, even during an eclipse is very dangerous and can damage your eyes. The simple and safe way to watch the process is to make a pin-hole camera, or use a small mirror to cast the image onto a plain wall. You can download the Royal Astronomical Society leaflet here.

You will need your eyes to be working at their best during the coming months to spot all the beautiful blossom that is bursting out all over the trees in Spring. This bloom will hopefully be the precursor to vast amounts of free fresh fruit, which you will then be able to access and eat. If you can’t eat it all at once you can transform it into pies,cakes, puddings, jams, cordials, chutney or anything else that comes to mind.

You should also be adding the trees locations onto the FallingFruit map, this way you and other people will be able to locate them more easily in future years.

The Urbane Forager Book Update…

Swift progress is being made during the Spring on the Urbane Forager book and we are now in the final stages of the design work.

If you want to receive updates on the progress of this project, please notify me via the contact pages here or on our community website. Then we can invite you to the book release party and you can be among the first to own a signed copy.

Spring is Sprung

At last! I have spotted my first Plum blossom of the year. It’s far from abundant at the moment, but in the warmer sheltered places the delicate creamy white buds that cover the branches are now opening to reveal their petals. Soon we will begin to see whole swathes of this ivory bloom along the roadsides and in the hedgerows.

 Remember though, it is not only the flowers of the Plum that herald the onset of Spring, the closely related Blackthorn will also bloom at the same time. The plums will develop fruit that will ripen in the Summer but Blackthorn bushes supply the Sloes and these will not mature until late Autumn .

Now is the time to begin spotting and identifying blossom, wherever you are and record its location. Once you have done this, you should also take a moment to indicate it on the Falling Fruit map.

During the chilly month of February, we took a trip to discover a stone circle near Oxford. The Devil’sCoits are situated in the beautiful village of Stanton Harcourt. The original landscape was shamefully destroyed by gravel extraction and then replaced with landfill but thankfully, the henge and stone circle has now been restored.

While we were in the Cotswolds we spotted lots of beautiful Kites. These large but extremely graceful birds of prey are a delight to watch as their distinct silhouettes circle above the villages, scanning the landscape for food.

The Urbane Forager Book Update…

Swift progress has been made during the Winter on the new Urbane Forager book and we are now in the final stages of the design work. We have a few early versions of potential covers for the book jacket and will post them here soon for your approval.