Nut wood is a favourite little local wood of mine since moving over the water.
Have probably visited it about 5 or 6 times now and there have been a few nice finds around and about.
Place has a good assortment of trees such as Beech, Oak, Elder and i cannot wait until the proper autumn mushroom season starts in this wood as i am hoping it will produce some nice mushrooms both edible and just purely interesting fungi to look at and identify.
The place was FULL of wild garlic/ramsons (Allium Ursinum) with an overpowering smell as soon as you entered the woods. This was earlier in the spring and has pretty much gone now but i got a good fill of salad leaves before they dissapeared, i tried drying them to save a bit for later but they seem to lose their potency on drying.
Also came across a few St George's Mushrooms (Calocybe Gambosa) lurking on the edge of the wood in the spring. I only caught them at the end of the season so there was just a handful and they were a bit old but still tasted good none the less!
There are also Jelly ear mushrooms (Auricularia Auricula) on numerous dead trees around an about the place. I have heard that Jelly ears prefer dead Alder trees, i have no idea if the trees they are on are Alder or not (I still need to do more tree studying!!) but as Jelly ears appear for most of the year round, i have seen them everytime i have been there, Still dry and hard on the tree but i find if you take them home and soak them in water you can clean them up and trim off any bits of bark etc and then just let them dry again ready for later use in any dish you see fit.
Over the last couple of weeks i managed to find a small haul of wild Raspberries (Rubus Idaeus). Much smaller and sweeter than the over sized commerical varieties. Were'nt too many around but the bushes are still producing and should be for a lil' while yet so hopefully i'll be able to revisit and find another haul in the future!
Along with the Raspberries i also picked up a handful of lovely wild gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa) On the first taste i was expecting them to be too tart to eat straight, but i like to try these things and they were surprisingly sweeter and a LOT less tart than i was expecting. Thought they would have to be cooked down and put into a pie or something to make them palatable but as it turned out i could eat them halfed with my morning cereal, yum!
Other things to note were many Hazlenut trees lurking about, these should come into fruition later in the year and it could be a bumber crop looking at it. As long as i leave plenty for the squirrels, i am hoping to make some sort of hazlenut paste.... we'll see how that goes later.
The Lords & Ladies (Arum Maculatum) are also out in force at the moment showing their berries on a stalk out of the ground. Strange looking plant but DO NOT be tempted by the berries, they are posionous and not something you want to be making a pie out of!
Looks like there will be a bumper crop of Elderberries in another month or so. Think there are also Sloes (Possibly some other sort of bullace, not 100% sure, i'll have to have a proper study at some point and see) although i am not a gin fan so not sure if i will utilise these or not. Have also seen some Rowan berries but again not sure if they have a use to me, and some other berries that i have yet to identify, i'll probably take a picture next time i am there and see if anyone can help identify it
Not much of the Fungal variety to be found yet, Just some Mica ink caps (Coprinus micaceus) (I think, have no pics, but i'm sure thats what they were) and also i came across a Stink Horn (Phallus impudicus) just in its egg stage. Not seen one in the egg stage before so wasn't exactly sure what it was at first but there were a few about so i took one home to cut it open to see if my suspicions were correct and they were.
