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Wild food plants on TV

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Aspidistra (U11680993) on Wednesday, 29th October 2008

  I really love gathering food from the wild, but I am also concerned that so many TV programmes are advocating using it.
  
  Perhaps it seems trivial, but I sometimes feel, we take so much of the land for our own cultivation and to then take what little is left and not leave it for the birds and animals is a worrying trend.
  
  I do gather stuff myself, but I try to make reparation by planting things with berries, hips, haws etc that will give food to wildlife. Is it responsible for TV programmes to encourage viewers to take from 'wild' plants, such as our dwindling hedgerows?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Dancing Dragonflies (U11928307) on Thursday, 30th October 2008

  I'm not sure it will make much difference to be honest, I've seen it more as a media trend that will die away again in a year or two. The reality is that people will always forrage for wild resources some more than others and it is not just due to TV programmes infuluecing them. In my old home town of Spalding in Lincolnshire there has always been large numbers of ducks and geese around the town and on the river Welland running thought it. Now there are so many settled eastern european workers in the area working on the land the populations of ducks and geese on the river have nearly dissapeared. In eastern europe it is common to take advantage of wild resources and so the new communities here have been doing just that, to the horror of local residents who are desperately trying to get their wildfowl protected!
  
  What is a natural habitat really? Very little of the British landscape is natural, it is all nearly completely shaped by man. We have been roaming around this planet hunting and gathering wild resources for thousands of years. Whether it is samphire growing on marshes that will grow back or mammoths that have been hunted to extinction, I don't think TV will ultimately have that much of an influence over it.
  
  

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Aspidistra (U11680993) on Thursday, 30th October 2008

  Morning Rach! Yeah, but no, but...there are all these chefs now as well who use wild plants and pay people to gather them. I would love to know what the impact is.
  

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by Dancing Dragonflies (U11928307) on Thursday, 30th October 2008

  I know, I always give the wrong answer, it seems to be a problem of mine...
  
  I just feel that it will be another fad, like that one where they tried to get everyone to drink wheatgrass juice. It will be tendy for a year or so and then die a death. Lots of people will run out and it once, get cold, wet and stuck in the brambles and then go back to thinking about something else, never to bother the hedgerows again.
  
  There is a little snippet in this months GW that is more interesting. Carol is suggesting that people get together with their neighbours and take out their garden fences and replace them sustainable hedgerows. That they can pick their own hips from and provide seeds/habitats etc for garden wild life too. I wonder what people will make of that?
  
  Rach xx

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Aspidistra (U11680993) on Thursday, 30th October 2008

  Maybe you're right Rach. Anyway thanks for coming out to play as nobody else seems to want to.<>
  
  I'm informally doing the Carol Klein idea, by planting a hedge pretty much as close as I can get to the fence. The fence is apparently mine, and is falling apart, so my plan is, that once my babies have established and grown to the height of the fence, I'll remove what will by then be a fairly tatty fence, leaving the new-improved hedge in its place. A sort of gardening sleight of paw, I thought.
  
  Only snag with hedging is the maintenance and I would be obliged to do the neighbour's side, too, as it would then be 'my' hedge. Still, if it gives food and shelter to a few birdies, jolly good. When I look at the gardens around me, there are virtually no places of shelter for birds
  

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by Dancing Dragonflies (U11928307) on Thursday, 30th October 2008

  well people are probably wondering whether to risk posting incase they are sent to the norty corner ...
  
  I like the idea of a hedge, but I don't think it would work or be embraced in my neighbourhood.

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