Discover twenty five wild food plants you can forage and harvest in January.
Availability should only be seen as a rough guide. Variations in climate and location will make a difference to what’s available.
Birch – Betula pendula
Twigs: Tea.
Bittercress – Cardamine spp.
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Burdock – Arctium spp.
Root: Raw, cooked.
Cleavers – Galium aparine
Shoots: Raw, cooked.
Creeping Thistle – Cirsium arvense
Root: Cooked.
Daisy – Bellis perennis
Rosette: Cooked.
Dandelion – Taraxacum officinale agg.
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Fennel – Foeniculum vulgare
Root: Raw, cooked.
Ground Elder – Aegopodium podagraria
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Hogweed – Heracleum sphondylium
Root: Cooked.
Horseradish – Armoracia rusticana
Root: Raw, cooked.
Lesser Celandine – Ficaria verna
Leaf: Cooked.
Mahonia – Mahonia aquifolium
Flowers: Raw.
Meadowsweet – Filipendula ulmaria
Root: Cooked.
Navelwort – Umbilicus rupestris
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Nipplewort – Lapsana communis
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Orpine – Sedum telephium
Root: Cooked.
Pink Purslane – Claytonia sibirica
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Red Valerian – Centranthus ruber
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Root: Cooked.
Rough Hawkbit – Leontodon hispidus
Root: Coffee substitute.
Saxifrage – Chrysosplenium spp.
Leaves: Cooked.
Sea Buckthorn – Hippophae rhamnoides
Fruit: Raw, cooked.
Smooth Sowthistle – Sonchus oleraceus
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Three-Cornered Leek – Allium triquetrum
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
Violet – Viola spp.
Leaf: Raw, cooked.
White Dead Nettle – Lamium album
Leaf and shoots: Raw, cooked.
White Stonecrop – Sedum album
Leaf: Raw.
Wood Avens – Geum urbanum
Root: Raw, cooked.
wow ‘red valerian’ root is edible? and meadowsweet root!
cool. is red valerian leaves edible too?
thanks.
They are but you’ve got to get them at the right time or they taste foul. Well they do to me, which doesn’t mean they do to you. January through to early March is the time to eat the leaves. Just try the odd one raw and cooked to see how you get on with them. Bio-individualism rules in the wild.
awesome thanks. the roots – what sort of flavour are they? assuming bitter?
Do these weeds grow at these times in the U.K. ?
I’m in Weymouth and have noticed lots of leaves on the mallow ‘trees’, in spite of days of frost. Are they any good now?
Where I live yes they are good to eat. Do they look [[fresh]]? I’m not being funny but would you eat kale leaves that looked old and yellowing. Wild greens are no different.
I found that so interesting and will take notice of what you have written.
Thank you.
What an amazing variety still available! I hadn’t ever thought about Sedum…
Thanks Robin ?
Thank you Robin I love the photo where is this place ? looks Devonish….
i am still finding identification and plant names tricky.
Robin can you use the twigs of a regular Birch, as opposed to silver for tea, I have one in my garden. I heard that you can tap a Birch tree for its syrup , is this true ?
I haven’t tried it but yes that should be fine. Tapping silver birch trees is an old tradition. You have to do it correctly or you can kill the tree.
Do birch twigs have medicinal uses?
Thanks for sharing this. I’m eating a lot of Alexanders at the moment. Leaves and stalks are nice in salads, stalks can be steamed or chop up in stirfry.
Thanks for the reminder, Robin, I had forgotten some of these.
Not far from you on “our” 4 acres we have 20 of the 25 you mention with a few extras not on your list!