On the 20th of August 2008 I registered Eatweeds.co.uk. I had started documenting what I was finding in the hedge, blogging recipes and observations and I had absolutely no idea where it would lead.
A few weeks later I met an American herbalist, plantwalker, and ethnobotanist called Frank Cook.
Frank looked at what I was doing with plants and told me quite simply that I needed to be teaching.
I had immersed myself prior to our meeting for 4 years in the hedgerows of Devon, getting every book I could out of the local library and flipping through thousands of photographs to identify the plants where I lived.
Back then there were no foraging teachers really and so I listened to Frank and timidly took the first steps to start teaching locally.
The strange thing is that Frank died the following year, on the 19th of August 2009, almost exactly a year after the domain was registered. I didn’t know him for long but that encounter changed the direction of my life forever.
And what a direction it took!
There were years when things went well and years when my life fell apart completely: drug addiction, the loss of my home, my marriage breaking up and the estrangement from my daughter, grandchild and friends.
I became homeless (not a rough sleeper but I had no fixed abode) and I spent more than a year wandering the highways and byways of Britain, following the seasons, foraging for meals, and teaching plants in exchange for somewhere to sleep.
Through all of it the plants remained and when almost everything else disappeared they were still there.
They fed me, occupied me, fascinated me, and in ways I really am only beginning to understand, helped put me back together.
18 years later, after registering the domain, Eatweeds has grown into something I could never have imagined.
There was never a game plan. I had no intention of becoming the reluctant plant teacher I have become. Instead this journey unfolded, emerging day by day, week by week, month by month.
Now 18 years later, I realise I’ve taught thousands of people, journeyed around the world researching traditional plant knowledge, spent countless hours in fields and libraries, and written books that have found their way into tens of thousands of homes.
Throughout all this remarkably little has changed. I’m still doing what Frank encouraged me to do in 2008: pay attention to plants, learn from them, engage your senses and your imagination, and pass on what is revealed to you, open-hearted, in an economic world where we have to balance kindness with commerce.
Happy 18th birthday, Eatweeds.
From the bottom of my heart I thank you all for being part of the journey.
P.S. If you have a story about how Eatweeds has helped you, I’d love to hear it. Feel free to send me an email (hello@eatweeds.co.uk) and tell me your story. Big love.