Purple Reign

Bluebells

March filled our world with vivid shades of green. April now introduces a different colour pallet. Birds are more vocal, singing to attract mates or proclaim territory, and starting to build nests.

Wisteria

This month is more commonly known for enchanting woodland displays of Bluebells, and wisteria wrapped cottages, but you cannot eat these plants.  

Cherry Blossom (White)

April also brings us Apple and Cherry Blossom. If you are familiar with these trees, you can be sure of where the first fruit (Cherries) will turn dark red and ripen in June. Similarly, with Apple blossom, you can easily spot where the trees are, but they might not be ready to pick until later in the year, around September.

Apple Blossom (Pink)

Japan is so famous for its cherry blossom season that it has created a tourist over-population problem. Fortunately (for some perhaps) in the UK, most people don’t even notice it ;-)

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Incidentally, the song, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White – is quite misleading! Cherry trees with pink blossom are often ornamental hybrids, bred purely for the flowers not the juicy fruit we all desire.

Jack by the Hedge

More significantly, my favourite foraging edibles in April are Wild Garlic, Ransoms and Jack by the Hedge, commonly known as Garlic/Mustard. These tasty plants are often easier to detect by their pungent smell, particularly in woodland settings. The leaves are very simple to collect and make easy additions to cooking. The flowers or buds can be pickled to make tasty capers. You should not dig up the bulbs but leave them for next year.

Rhubarb

Our purple sprouting broccoli is looking and tasting very nice too. Also, I’m now on my fifth Rhubarb crumble! I noted that the stalks in the garden were quite thin this time, so I gave the plot a copious watering. We’ve had three months of rain followed by three months of no rain at all, making gardening more complex. We should be recognising signs of Climate Change, as well as signs of Spring.

Ransoms

Blooming Blossom



Beautiful Hedgerow Blossom



Spring is in the air at last, and it looks like it might be early this year. Daffodils are showing their bright yellow faces by the roadsides and you will begin to notice the hedgerows filling up with the beautiful, snowy haze of blossom.



Plum Blossom Heralds in the Springtime

This busy bloom is the flowers of the blackthorn (sloe is the fruit) and plum trees. It can be difficult to tell the two apart at first (they both belong to the same family) but the blackthorn has long sharp thorns on the branches and trunks, so the clue is in the name.

To Distinguish between Plum and Blackthorn - Press Your Thumb On These...

As the early flowers open, the trees are also filled with plump buds and soon all of these proto-flowers will burst forth in their full glory, smothering the trees in a haze of effervescent beauty.

This blossom is not just a thing to marvel at and wonder over. It is also a chance to register where delicious fruit may be growing later on.

At this early stage you will not be able to discern which variety of fruit (if any) will later appear; it could be damson, mirabelle, bullace, cherry plum, greengage or normal plums.

Like a Chinese Painting

Cherry plums make a sweet, firm afternoon snack; I often pick some during my lunchtime wanders and stash them in my lunchbox to munch on later.

Plum Blossom Normally Has Five Petals

The elusive greengage is quite simply delicious; they burst in your mouth like soft, delicate nectar-filled purses. There is a stone in there too mind you, so it’s best not to get too carried away.

If you are lucky you may even find a Victoria plum tree (the head Chef’s favourite) – We found one last year with big, fat beauties on it. It was in a Chandlers Ford car park and most likely a remnant left over from an old orchard or fruit garden.

A Blooming Wave

In the end though, it’s not the technical name of individual fruits that matters, it’s the fact that they taste delicious straight off the tree, freeze easily, cook well, make great wine and cost absolutely nothing.

Hedges Change Colour

There is always a positive glut of plums available every year. So, you should never need to buy them from the supermarket when they are in season next June/July.

Buds Bursting To Open

Free cherries follow soon after the plums.

Cherry, Apple and Pear Blossom

"I know very little about the distance between stars or about the motives of Pepys, but I can always smell the Summertime at the latest by early Spring."

This evocative little lyric comes form an obscure song that I enjoyed as a teenager. It has always stayed with me and seems to become more pertinent with time.

Cherry Blossom

We are experiencing an unseasonably warm April, not that I'm complaining. The Cherry trees have been springing into flower and the blossom filled branches are stretching skywards. Pruned Cherry trees are normally kept to a few metres height but they can reach far further when left to their own devices.

It Will be Difficult to Pick These Cherries

Cherries are a native tree in the UK but it never ceases to amaze me how many there are in the parks, woodland and hedgerows. We started spotting the florid limbs poking up through the hedges along the motorway recently, not that I advocate advising picking them from the verges of arterial roads. 

Cherry Blossom

Cherries are the first fruits that we pick in the Summer. There are plenty to be found in the city's lovely parks and the pavements of quiet streets. We even pick them from industrial estates at the weekends, when they become peaceful places.

Pear Blossom (I Believe)

The exceptional Spring weather is also bringing Apple and Pear trees into bloom, which makes me think that I should organise a Blossom Walk at the Mansbridge Community Orchard fairly soon.

In other news... We have finished putting the final touches to the new Urbane Forager book and will soon have an approximate release date for you. This blog has received over 100,000 page views and now contains over 250 posts! A Great Big Fat Thank You to all our readers, please tell your friends and help spread the word...

Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White

Today was another day not to be stuck in the office, so I made the most of my short sleeved shirt and camera during my lunch break.

I have been waiting for one of the cherry trees just outside to bloom fully, mainly because it looks pink and frilly, and I had the Modern Romance song, stuck firmly in my head.  I shot it in bright sunlight against the backdrop of an Industrial building. I’m not a great photographer but this jumped out when I got it home.

Wow, I feel like a pro!

It looked equally stunning against the bright blue sky.

None to shabby either.

I was hoping to find some apple blossom peeping through; I wanted to photograph some for a section on tree identification on the Urbane Forager website and had noticed the tiny pink buds last week. It was a fairly long walk but I figured I could make the round trip in the hour, even given a few dalliances.

Pink and Closed

I was not to be disappointed.

White When Open

I even located a gigantic new apple tree that I had never noticed before, next to a cherry (see Perez Prado / Mack David lyric below). Both were covered in full white blossom.

Blooming Heck!

While I was taking a close up of a flower, I spotted (ho ho) a tiny ladybird running in and out; I managed to photograph him eventually.

Almost too good to be true

On the walk back to work I noticed that the perfume of cherry trees actually does smell a bit like the fruit tastes. I also shot another frilly (but this time white) cherry, which looked rather nice illuminated from the back by the sun.

White and Frilly

Then sadly it was back to the grindstone.

Now though it is Friday evening, I am alone with a glass of red wine and the prospect of a sunny weekend reclines languidly ahead...

Lyric...

It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
When your true lover comes your way
It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
The poets say

The story goes that once a cherry tree
Beside an apple tree did grow
And there a boy once met his bride to be
Long long ago

The boy looked into her eyes, it was a sight to enthrall
The breezes joined in their sighs, the blossoms started to fall
And as they gently carressed, the lovers looked up to find
The branches of the two trees were intertwined

And that is why the poets always write
If there's a new moon bright above
It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
When you're in love

Spring Forward

One of Springs unexpected delights is the sight of Catkins, caught in sunlight, hanging in a hedgerow or dappled woodland, like golden rain. Catkins are tree flowers, commonly a Hazel tree, so later, around September there will be Hazel nuts to gather here.

Hazel Catkins 

The 2026 vernal equinox occurs on March 20, marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Equinox means equal periods of night-time and daylight; the tilt of the earth also brings us closer to the sun. We get longer hours of warmer sunlight up until the Summer solstice. Nature adapts according to the increase in temperature and the dwindling hours of night.

Plumb Blossom

One of my favourite and most apparent signs of Spring is the sudden blossoming of Plum trees and the related Blackthorn. Plum trees in city gardens and roadsides are suddenly filled with dramatic shows of creamy white flowers. The blossom also has a distinctive smell, which reminds me of marzipan (made from almonds, and also related), you can even taste it in a plum flower. One of my long time hobbies is the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun and this name translates as "Beautiful Springtime" and the plum blossom is a related symbol. The key thing with plum blossom is remembering where it is, plums in many varieties and colours could be there later in the season. Blackthorn, which is more common in countryside hedgerows, will supply us with Sloes later in Autumn, allowing us to prepare everyone's favourite Xmas liquor, Sloe Gin.

Magnolia Blossom

Another tree that flowers in urban gardens at this time of year, is the stunning Magnolia, their big blousy flowers are showy but also eminently edible, giving a distinctive tase of ginger. There are lots of different Magnolia recipes including various teas and biscuits.

Ransoms

Less showy but just as tasty plants that appear in abundance in Spring include Wild Garlic and Ransoms, which you normally smell before you see them, typically covering woodland banks or in damp hedges the leaves and flowers can be used in many cooking applications including salads, pesto or just for added flavour in a meal.

Alexanders

Alexanders are an often missed Spring hedgerow gem. Tasting akin and related to the carrot family, it has edible leaves and flowers. The delicious flowers can be fried in batter, the leaves can be fried in butter with wild garlic, a tasty supplement to any meal. A word of caution, you need to be very careful with plant identification, if you are unsure, don't pick it. Several very common but extremely poisonous plants (Hemlock and water Hemlock Dropwort spring to mind), can look very similar to the untrained eye. I spent a year observing the differences, through the seasons, before venturing into eating these plants.

Beautiful Springtime

Spring Flowers

Most people associate Spring with blossom and flowers.  But the seasons do not suddenly change, rather they segue, sliding from one into the other and occasionally back again. However, the wheel turns relentlessly and the more times we see it rotate, the more we become acquainted with the sequence.

Although the months slip and slide and what happens during their passage can vary; within a tolerance, we can predict, roughly, what will appear at a given time.

January brings delicate snowdrops, for the galanthophiles.

February fetches up the shifting colours of crocuses.

March trumpets in yellow daffodils on the roadsides and then Blackthorn (Sloe) and Plum blossom in the hedgerows and trees . Having said this, I have already seen my first Plum blossom of 2013 and recently in Devon we saw a deligtful roadside bank with Snowdrops, Crocuses and Daffodills all in bloom at once.

April fills the woodland floor with Bluebells and Cherry blossom bursts from the trees.

April-May brings the Apple & Pear blossom as Spring eventually draws to a close. May-Day heralds the start of the Summer; with Elderflowers, ready to be turned into champagne and cordial.

Something else for me to point out, is that I'm still eating delicious apples that we picked last September/October and stored in our shed!

Plum Blossom and Blackthorn Bloom

You know Spring is on the way when you spot the first bloom of white and pink Plum Blossom in the hedgerows.

The white Blossom with its small, delicate five petalled flowers, suddenly brings life back to the city roads and countryside.

It can be difficult to tell the difference between Plum and Blackthorn blossom. The Blackthorn will, of course, bear Sloes next Autumn.

The simple way to tell the difference is to plunge your arm vigorously into the bush and wriggle it about. 

If it is covered in bloody scratches when you retrieve it, odds are it was a Blackthorn... The clue is in the name ;-)

Of course, you could simply marvel at the beauty that nature brings and remember where the plums will be in a couple of months. 

It always brings a smile to my face, when the warmer weather finally takes hold...

Cherry Blossom Blooms

Spring is now thoroughly engaged, the air is warmer and the cherry blossom is showing through in many places. The bees are buzzing and the butterflies fluttering.

The initial bloom of Plum and Blackthorn is now fading and the young fruit is already developing nicely.

I recently visited Transylvania in Romania (to coach Wing Chun) and was delighted to note that most gardens both in the city and the more rustic countryside were positively stuffed with fruit trees. Of course it was Springtime, so it was easy to spot all the beautiful fresh blossom on the trees.

It will not belong before we can organise our yearly Blossom Walk at the Mansbridge Community Orchard, so keep your eyes peeled for further announcements.

Don't Touch That Dial!