A Walk in the Parks

Civic Centre from the Park

After our success at the British Science Festival, I was invited to lead a foraging walk through the Southampton Central Parks.  Southampton city is rightly famous for its numerous green spaces,  central parks and the common, as well as its more famous connections with historic ships, Mayflower and the tragic Titanic (the Saints football club and University deserve a shout too).

Sweet Gum (Liquid Amber)

I knew this event would be challenging, partly because it was late October but I also knew there was not many seasonal fruit trees on the route. I was going to have to stretch both my knowledge, imagination and definition, for this activity. I did a quick walk through the week before and the results were surprising. 

Rowan (Mountain Ash)

On the day, the weather was fine, Saints were playing at home, and after a brisk walk, I arrived on time, hot but energised. There was a diverse group of enthusiastic people waiting, with a handful of very helpful volunteers. We duly set off to examine the trees in the first park, Hoglands. 

Gingko Leaves, Walnuts and Beach nuts

We started with the beautiful autumnal Maple trees and talked about tapping sap for making maple syrup, then we found some Rowan trees and discussed how to make jelly or preserves from the bright orange berries. The children found Horse Chestnuts (Conkers) and acorns from Oak trees. Then we found Beech nuts and talked about how these can be processed and eaten. I also suggested the children could explore the Speakers Corner and tell people what they thought.

Plenty of Walnuts

People of all ages were gathering collections of colourful autumnal leaves when we spotted our first Walnut, in Houndwell park. Much to people's surprise, we eventually found ten Walnut trees! We also examined a Gingkotree, also known as living fossils, because petrified specimens can be found. This tree is not normally edible, although some people make tea from the leaves, but a very interesting tree to discuss and appreciate its distinct, fan shaped leaves.

Strawberry Tree Fruits

In Palmerston Park we discovered wild Cherry and Plum trees, as well as Magnolia. Magnolia flowers can be eaten or cooked with, and have a ginger flavour. We found Pear trees, but the fruits were the tiny Canicular ornamental variety. There was also a suitably multi-coloured Sweet Gum (Liquid Amber), where chewing Gum originated from. This tree looked spectacular in the slanting sunlight, we found more of these autumnal beauties later.

Sweet Gum Leaves

In East Park we found more Magnolia, Plum, Apple, Walnut, and Sweet Gum trees. We also found three Cork trees, the bark of which was traditionally used to create corks (!) and other cork products. Here, we noted several large trees had fallen in the recent gales, many trees had been seriously stressed by the unusually hot summer and prolonged drought.

Beech Tree

Finally, we crossed over the High Street to West or Watts Park, there we found a Mulberry tree, which bares delicious, sweet fruits in season, and a Sweet Chestnut tree, the Chestnuts here were very small due to the drought. We also counted yet more Walnut and Gingko trees. I finally signed off by finding two Strawberry trees. Strawberry tree fruits can be eaten but they are not as exciting as they sound or look, the taste is very bland and disappointing.

Allotmenteering

We finally got the nod from the council, regarding our request for an allotment at the Witts Hill site. Lasts year we had helped out and shared our friends patch but it was right on the other side of the city and difficult to frequent as much as was needed.

Allotments are great places for the kids to get used to digging, growing and weeding, they enjoy the freedom and open air. Witts Hill is only a fifteen minute walk away from us, so we set off to see what we had been allocated.

Our space was on a slope at the bottom edge of the site. Plastic sheeting had been laid down by the previous owner, to suppress weed growth but this was mostly shredded to bits by the storms and largely unusable but at least some of the earth was fairly bare.

At our friend’s allotment, we constructed a rustic fruit cage, out of coppiced hazel. It proved quite a success, so we had already decided to replicate this plan on our new plot. We chose a suitable spot and got digging to define the edges and remove weeds, roots and grass.

The children were assigned an area to keep for themselves, they love the allotment and set to work keenly and with fairly few squabbles. The kids are also great for fetching wood chippings and water, not that we have needed much of the latter recently. Cucumbers and strawberries seem to be their favourite crop to plant – perfect for a summer picnic I guess.

Digging grassy ground over can be back breaking work and the official advice is to work in small portions. Many people watch too many TV gardening shows and think that it will be easy; they get a nasty shock when the hard work kicks in and often give up before they get any benefit out of the land. Cold and wet weather can also put off less determined and hardy allotmenteers.

Being walking distance from the house is a real advantage and I soon had the fruit cage plotted out and fruit bushes in the earth. I got some stout Hazel poles and, from a rather precarious perch, hammered them into the corners. Meanwhile, the plot next to the cage was being thoroughly dug over by Sarah who also planted some strawberry plants.

The children were busy planting onion-sets in their own patch and my son also planted his young apple tree; he has nurtured this sapling from a pip. I planted a pear and a nectarine tree that I found reduced and lonely in a store; Sarah assures me that the nectarine will never bear fruit in the UK climate, but it does already have very attractive flowers and the label says it will be provide plenty – so I guess we’ll wait and see.

My other jobs seem to be attacking the mass of bramble bushes and stinging nettles at the bottom of the allotment and collecting enough scrap wood to make a shelter/shed. I’m considering nettle beer and aim to train some of the brambles, so that we can collect a decent blackberry crop this summer. A compost heap is inevitable…

Tough Work All That Digging

On any allotment site, Heath Robinson rules; you really do see the best of British eccentric behaviour, inventiveness, cunning recycling and shear resourcefulness at work.

Strawberry Tree Tease

While foraging around with my boy for things to make Christmas decorations out of, we spotted some strange small red fruits on the ground. They looked halfway between lychees and painted plain tree seed balls. Closer inspection revealed that they were very soft and ripe, it took no effort at all to break them open and inside they were filled with a soft, bright orange pulp.

The tree that they had fallen from still had some fruits dangling like baubles, I remembered reading somewhere that there were strawberry trees in the area and guessed that this might be what we had found.

We saw the house owner in the front garden and asked, she confirmed that it was indeed a Strawberry tree and that the fruits were edible; although she didn’t like them at all. Then, she very kindly invited us in to her back garden to see the tree.

I picked a couple of the fruits off the ground and took them home. We all tried the soft exotic looking fruits; I thought that the orange pulp tasted vaguely of citrus, with chewy seeds. They were very bland though and didn’t taste very much of anything. According to Grandma, there is also a tree in the car park of Fryern Arcade (Chandlers Ford).

All in all, I was excited about discovering and identifying the mythical strawberry tree; the beautiful fruits look totally spectacular but this tree is just a tease and the taste of its fruit is something of an anticlimax. I would eat one again but only if I was so hungry that I couldn’t walk to the shops.

It's a pity we couldn't use them as Christmas baubles.