A Handbook Of Scotland S Wild Harvests

Are you a forager? If you dream of being more connected to the landscape and all the bounty it can provide, this invaluable guide from the team who created A Handbook of Scotland's Trees will inform you about plants from fields, woods and seashores, as well as firewood and seaweeds. Here you'll discover well-tried recipes from Scottish kitchens - from nettle haggis to blaeberry muffins - and a wealth of woodland and hedgerow materials you can use in the garden or home. The information is drawn together from expert members of both Reforesting Scotland and the Scottish Wild Harvests Association (SWHA), trusted custodians of our environment and natural resources. Many are professionals in the field, and all of them know their plants and materials thoroughly from years or decades of experience. Their entries abound in useful information on habitat, history, uses, lore, and how to distinguish a useful plant from similar species that are not.

This comprehensive handbook, compiled with the expertise of Reforesting Scotland's editors, covers trees commonly found in Scotland. From seed provenance and propagation to the history and lore of each species, this single source contains all the information you need to select the right trees for your site and grow them successfully. Whether you are an owner of (or volunteer at) a small woodland, a gardener looking to incorporate the most appropriate trees into your space, or simply a lover of woodland walks and trees, this invaluable reference will be your one essential guide. Ebook edition includes colour photos.

This is the new edition of the first ever comprehensive guide to the many ways in which wild plants have been used in Scotland from prehistoric times to the present day. To our ancestors, there was no such thing as a weed. Every growing thing had a role to play in daily life—as an ingredient for food, as medicine, as a dye or as fodder for livestock. Tess Darwin reveals the forgotten secrets of Scottish plant lore in fascinating detail, showing how many of the plant remedies which were dismissed by modern scientists as superstition have since been found to be effective in treating illness and have led to the creation of many new drugs. Tess Darwin has delved deeply into the forgotten secrets of Scottish plant lore, gathering information from a wide range of sources—from old herbals to the most up-to-date scientific research. She has uncovered the uses and folklore of hundreds of plants—as an ingredient for food, as medicine, as a dye or the raw material for textiles, as fodder for livestock, and in traditional crafts like basket-making and thatching, wine-making and wood-carving.

This book is a compact colour guide of the largest survey of Scottish gardens ever mounted and the first such guidebook to all that Scotland can offer garden and plant lovers. Including descriptions of virtually all Scotland's gardens which are open to the public, it recommends when to visit and what to look out for. Gardens are described in a pithy and lively style. Also covered are specialist nurseries, garden centres, wildflower walks, shows, public parks and more. The book includes useful maps showing routes for day trips and short-break tours and is illustrated throughout with full-colour images by Ray Cox. This is the ideal book for the Scot or the tourist who wishes to explore the world of gardens and plants in Scotland.

In the fifth of the River Cottage Handbook series, John Wright reveals the rich pickings to be had on the seashore - and the team at River Cottage explain how to cook them to perfection. For the forager, the seashore holds surprising culinary potential. In this authoritative, witty book John Wright takes us on a trip to the seaside. But before introducing us to the various species to be harvested, he touches on such practicalities as conservation and the ethics of foraging; safety from tides, rocks and food poisoning; the law and access to the shore, our right to fish, landing sizes and seasons; and equipment such as nets, pots and hooks. Next comes the nitty-gritty: all the main British seashore species that one might be tempted to eat. The conservation status, taste and texture, availability, seasonality, habitat, collecting technique and biology of each species is covered; there are also quite a few gratuitous but fascinating diversions. The species covered include crustacea (brown shrimp, common crab, lobster, prawn, shore crab, spider crab, squat lobster, velvet swimming crab); molluscs (clams, cockle, dog whelk, limpet, mussel, oyster, razor clam, winkle); mushrooms; plants (alexanders, babbington's orache, fennel, frosted orache, marsh samphire, perennial wall rocket, rock samphire, sea beet, sea buckthorn, sea holly, sea kale, sea purslane, sea rocket, spear-leaved orache, wild cabbage, wild thyme); and seaweed (carragheen, dulse, gut weed, laver, pepper dulse, sea lettuce, sugar kelp, kelp). Finally, there are thirty brilliant recipes. Introduced by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Edible Seashore is destined to join the other handbooks in the series as an indispensable household reference.

Scotland is a nation of dramatic weather and breathtaking landscapes – of nature resplendent. And, over the centuries, the people who have lived, explored and thrived in this country have developed a rich language to describe their surroundings: a uniquely Scottish lexicon shaped by the very environment itself. A Scots Dictionary of Nature brings together – for the first time – the deeply expressive vocabulary customarily used to describe land, wood, weather, birds, water and walking in Scotland. Artist Amanda Thomson collates and celebrates these traditional Scots words, which reveal ways of seeing and being in the world that are in danger of disappearing forever. What emerges is a vivid evocation of the nature and people of Scotland, past and present; of lives lived between the mountains and the sky.