A-foraging we will go..

Another week, another Twitter conversation which inspires another (poor) cover of someone else's genius.

Apparently the bane of many a riverside, Himalayan Balsam, is dripping with nectar for pollinators. Great, but it's a bit rubbish for other plants which would like to live along the river banks.

Carol Klein commented on James Wong's tweet along those lines. Having spent a couple of summers when I was at university 'balsam bashing' at a local nature reserve, I have to admit to having itchy hands, ready to pull it up, whenever I see it.

 



(By the way, I love that two of the presenters on the very programme also use the hashtag #ShoutyHalfHour! However, when they have bits in an episode, it usually becomes #QuietlyAbsorbedAndInterestedHalfHour in our household but that hashtag is too long for Twitter).

Anyway, back to the topic. Turns out, according to VP, that Himalayan Balsam is edible..

Of course, many things are edible. That doesn't mean you'd actually want to eat them. Our allotment was over-run with ground elder when we took it over. To be honest, parts of it pretty much remained so. I read that it was edible. We tried it. To bowdlerise the great Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee: "You can live on it, but it tastes like $h1t". Still, not as bad as strawberry spinach, which is an actual crop. Anyway, you can now appreciate my starting point when it comes to the trend that is foraging. Just no.

But then, a challenge...

And so, with apologies to Thomas Arne, I present A-foraging we will go. Not my best, but it's Sunday evening and I haven't had any wine...

A-foraging we will go,

A-foraging we will go,

Himalayan Balsam’s quite dandy, if it’s covered in candy;

And then we’ll let it grow.

A-foraging we will go,

A-foraging we will go,

Ground elder’s quite nice if you drown it in spice;

And then we’ll let it grow.

A-foraging we will go,

A-foraging we will go,

Nettles have zing, if you don’t mind the sting;

And then we’ll let them grow.

 

A-foraging we will go,

Oh actually, wait, just no

Don’t call me an arse, but they all taste like grass

Let’s just let them grow.