Focusing on giving you the knowledge and confidence to start your foraging journey, connecting you to nature and improving wellbeing.

Half-day (£40), half-day with lunch (£55) and full-day (£85) foraging courses for beginners and intermediates. The half-day with lunch course includes the entire half-day session, followed by a 2-course lunch. The full-day course includes all that, plus an afternoon session of more learning and walking in nature. Children under 12 come free (within reason, and please let me know in advance), and well-behaved dogs on a lead are more than welcome.

What to expect

For the half-day courses (and first half of the full-day course), we’ll take a 2.5-hour guided foraging walk (covering about 2 miles), stopping regularly to discuss (and where possible, eat!) the many edible goodies we find along the way, whether that be foliage, flowers, fruits, nuts or mushrooms! What we’ll find depends on the time of year. The route is mostly flat and we go at a slow and steady pace.

The main focus will be foraging for wild food, but we will also touch upon medicinal or “bushcraft” uses if relevant to what we find.

Half-Day Course (and first part of the Full-Day) will include:

A brief introduction to myself and foraging in general.

Finding and discussing around 15 species common across the UK.

How to identify the species we come across.

Information about toxic species to avoid.

Foraging laws and principles to ensure you forage legally, safely and responsibly.

Trying a couple of pre-prepared wild food-based samples!

A 2-course lunch containing many foraged goodies (Half-day with Lunch and Full-Day courses only).

A follow-up email to participants with a summary of the species we found and other useful information, such as my recommended books for further reading.

For the lunch part of the day, we can accommodate gluten-free, vegan, and a few other dietary requirements. Please respond to my confirmation email closer to the course date with your specific dietary needs.

During the lunch, there is an opportunity to read through and get a flavour for many different foraging related books that I will bring with me.

If it is raining during lunch, we can shelter under some nearby Beech trees, but wearing warm clothing and waterproofs is also a must on a wet day.

Lunch is normally wrapped up by no later than 2:00pm.

Full-day course afternoon session (2pm - 4pm)

After a delicious 2-course taste of the wild lunch, the learning and walking continue in the afternoon and includes:

If desired or where convenient to do so, re-capping certain species from the morning session, and going deeper on some of the topics we covered in the morning, including identification skills and toxicity.

Finding and discussing around 10 further species common across the UK that have food uses.

Foraging for non-food uses, such as medicinal uses and/or finding natural plant fibres to make your own string or rope!

Learning about “forest bathing” and the importance of trees from a foraging perspective.

Across the full-day course, we will cover 3 to 4 miles in total (including the morning session).

Making foraging fun and safe

Foraging is fun and fascinating, with so many benefits! It’s as safe as anything when approached with the right level of caution, awareness, and knowledge. It’s important to realise, however, that foraging can be dangerous IF you approach it with a lack of caution (recklessness), and/or a lack of awareness of the risks and without the respect nature deserves. During the course, I will show you how to approach foraging so you don’t just minimise but eliminate all risks, so you are free to enjoy the many benefits that foraging brings to your life – and there are many!

Log in to nature

Humans have been foraging as a way to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Before farming, this was how we survived – finding what nature provided in harmony with the seasons and the land. This period before farming forms over 95 per cent of our existence as a species, so to our brains and bodies, wild food foraging feels incredibly natural – which is one of the reasons it feels so good!

Foraging is one of the best ways to disconnect from our busy modern lives of emails, social media and technology, and reconnect with nature and our ancestral roots. During our foraging walks, we will log off from the modern world and log in to nature!

Meeting point and parking

For this course, we’ll meet at the end of Beeley Wood Lane (S6 1QT), where it meets Beeley Wood, by the Public Footpath sign just before the entrance to the business site "Abbey Forged Products".

A postcode to get you to the general area is S6 1QT, though please note that following this postcode on Google Maps (and other Sat Navs) will NOT take you to the exact meeting point. Therefore, to get to where we are meeting and starting, please instead use the Google Maps “dropped pin” link below.

Dropped pin: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZMQ6SxmAi3p988Bz5?g_st=ic (https://maps.app.goo

Description supplied by the event organiser.