Waste not, want not workshop series: Foraging & Cooking: From Hedgerow to Table
Learn to identify, harvest and cook wild garlic and nettles into delicious seasonal food!
Join us for a wonderful spring foraging and cooking workshop where you’ll learn to safely identify and harvest wild edibles from our hedgerows, then transform them into delicious, nutritious dishes in our cookery school. This hands-on session combines outdoor foraging with practical cooking skills—perfect for anyone curious about wild food and seasonal eating!
Completely free, and you’ll taste (and take home) everything you make.
What you’ll do
Spring is the perfect time to discover wild food growing all around us. In this workshop, you’ll head outdoors to forage for wild garlic and nettles on our farm, then come into the warmth of our cookery school to turn your finds into three delicious dishes: hearty nettle soup, wild garlic and cheese scones, and luxurious wild garlic butter.
Your foraging and cooking journey:
🌿 Introduction & Plant Identification We’ll start by talking through exactly what we’re looking for, how to identify it with 100% certainty, and what we’ll be making. Safety first—you’ll never forage something unless you’re absolutely sure what it is!
🌱 Foraging Walk Head out onto our beautiful farm to harvest fresh wild garlic and nettles. Learn about:
- Safe plant identification (being 100% certain is crucial!)
- Sustainable harvesting practices (taking without damaging)
- The incredible nutrition in these wild plants
- Where and when to find them
- Which parts to harvest and which to leave
🍲 Nettle Soup Back in the cookery school, we’ll wash your foraged nettles and wild garlic, then prepare a warming, nutritious nettle soup. Discover how to handle nettles safely, extract maximum flavour, and create a vibrant green soup that’s far superior to anything shop-bought!
🧀 Wild Garlic & Cheese Scones Learn to make fluffy, savoury scones studded with wild garlic and cheese. These are absolute showstoppers—perfect with soup, delicious on their own, and brilliant to impress friends and family. You’ll master scone-making technique while the wild garlic adds that special seasonal touch.
🧈 Wild Garlic Butter (While scones cool) The perfect finishing touch! Finely chop your foraged wild garlic and beat it into butter to create a luxurious compound butter. Incredible on the warm scones, brilliant on toast, gorgeous with vegetables—this is spring in a butter dish!
😋 Tasting Finally, sit down together to enjoy the fruits of your foraging and cooking: warm scones with wild garlic butter, and steaming bowls of nettle soup. Pure seasonal satisfaction!
- 2-hour foraging and cooking workshop (10am – 12pm)
- Guided foraging walk on our farm
- Expert instruction on plant identification and safety
- All additional ingredients provided (butter, cheese, stock, etc.)
- Hands-on cooking in our professional cookery school
- Recipe cards for all three dishes to take home
- Tasting session—enjoy everything you’ve made!
- Take home any leftovers
- Small, friendly group with plenty of support
Workshop details
Grow, Cook, Share, Care is a Hands of Hope programme engaging vulnerable groups, those with complex needs, families, especially those living in food poverty, and older people, in learning, wellness and social activities aligned to growing, cooking, and nature.
Suitable for all. Priority for spaces will be given to people meeting the criteria: aged over 50, young carers and young adults with learning disabilities.
There is no charge for this workshop, donations are always welcome!
Please ensure you arrive ten minutes before the start time to ensure we can get everyone registered, and please bring a container to take your home your goodies and rubber gloves for picking the nettles!
Each participant must book individually so we can monitor eligibility and ensure we’re fully prepared for everyone attending the workshop.