Introduction to Foraging Course, Sheffield

Children under 12 come free. Well-behaved dogs on a lead are also more than welcome.

We will take a 2.5 hour walk (covering about two miles) around a beautiful nature reserve, stopping regularly to discuss (and where possible, eat!) the many edible goodies we find along the way, whether that be plants, flowers, fruits, nuts or mushrooms! What we’ll find depends on the time of year and the mercy of nature! The route is mainly a walking/hiking trail with some up and down, and we’ll go at a steady pace.

Although the main focus will be foraging from the perspective of wild food, we will also touch upon what can be foraged for non-food uses, such as medicinal purposes, or "bushcraft" uses like finding a natural plaster in the wild or making your own string!

This course will cover the best ways to start and progress through the early stages of your foraging journey, in order to best maximise your learning and development, and will include:

• Finding and discussing over 20 species common across the UK that have food, medicinal and/or bushcraft purposes.
• How to identify the plants, flowers, fruits, nuts and mushrooms we come across.
• Foraging laws and principles to ensure you forage safely and responsibly.
• Information about poisonous species to avoid, and how to forage in a way that will ensure you always stay safe.

Foraging is fun, fascinating and fruitful (literally!) and when done properly, you have nothing to fear. It’s important to realise however that foraging can be dangerous IF you approach it with recklessness and without the respect nature deserves. My course will aim to show you exactly how foraging is fun, fascinating and fruitful so that you can get your foraging journey off to the most enjoyable start, but also how to ensure you forage in a way that keeps you safe.

The course perhaps obviously has foraging at its heart, but will also aim to immerse you in nature in general. It's a chance to log off from digital distractions and the modern world, and log in to the rejuvenating power of nature. There are few better ways to connect to nature than through foraging.

For this course, we’ll meet at the end of Redmires Way (S10 4NB) where it meets Redmires Road. The postcode will take you to Redmires Way, and there is ample space for off-road parking on Redmires Way itself, or on one of the roads it leads to. Alternatively, there is a parking lot next to The Sportsman pub which is a bit further down Redmires Road and would involve walking about 0.4 miles to our meeting point.

Google Maps "dropped pin" location for our exact meeting point is: https://goo.gl/maps/q9M3AZSYfVnrb7BL7

Host or Publisher The Forager Within