The harvest journal

Picking guides & seasonal recipes

From planning a farm visit to cooking your harvest: seasonal answers, practical guides and recipes for fruit and wild food.

From the kitchen

• 

  Baking

  Hedgerow Apple & Blackberry Galette

  One free-form pastry, a bowl of windfall apples and whatever blackberries survived the walk home.

  6 min read Serves 6 Best in Aug–Oct

• 

  Preserving

  The Wild Pantry: Elderflower Cordial, Wild Garlic Pesto & Sloe Vinegar

  Three jars that turn a spring walk into a year of flavour, with foraging rules that keep the patch alive.

  8 min read Serves 12 Best in Apr–Oct

• 

  Slow cooking

  Honey-Roasted Pears with Thyme & Ricotta

  A four-ingredient pudding built for a jar of raw honey brought home from a bee farm.

  4 min read Serves 4 Best in Sep–Dec

• 

  Slow cooking

  Truffle Butter Tagliolini, the Tuscan Way

  What the hunters actually cook after a morning in the oak woods: butter, pasta water, and a lot of shaving.

  5 min read Serves 2 Best in Jan–Dec

• 

  Wild food

  Rosehip Protein Balls

  No-bake energy balls made with foraged rosehips, oats and seeds. Sweet, chewy and built for a winter walk.

  5 min read Serves 12 Best in Sep–Dec

• 

  Preserving

  Elderflower Cordial

  Twenty heads of blossom, lemons, sugar and a little patience: the syrup that tastes like June in a glass.

  6 min read Serves 12 Best in May–Jun

• 

  Wild food

  Nettle Soup

  The classic spring forager's supper: young nettle tops, potato and stock, blended into something silky and green.

  5 min read Serves 4 Best in Mar–May

• 

  Preserving

  Sloe Gin

  A bottle of gin, a bag of frost-kissed sloes and three months of patience at the back of the cupboard.

  4 min read Serves 12 Best in Oct–Nov

• 

  Preserving

  Blackberry & Apple Jelly

  The easiest way to bottle a hedgerow: brambles and windfall apples, strained and set to a clear ruby jelly.

  7 min read Serves 12 Best in Aug–Oct

• 

  Preserving

  Dandelion Honey

  Flower petals, lemon and sugar boiled down to a syrup that fools everyone who tastes it: no bees involved.

  5 min read Serves 12 Best in Apr–May

• 

  Preserving

  Elderberry Syrup

  A dark, spicy winter tonic of elderberries, ginger and honey, made from one hedgerow harvest.

  5 min read Serves 12 Best in Sep–Oct

• 

  Preserving

  Rowan & Crab Apple Jelly

  A sharp amber jelly for roast lamb and strong cheese, made from the bright berries most people walk straight past.

  6 min read Serves 12 Best in Sep–Oct

• 

  Slow cooking

  Wild Mushroom & Barley Broth

  A deep, woodsy one-pot broth for the mushroom basket: porcini, pearl barley, root vegetables and thyme.

  7 min read Serves 4 Best in Sep–Nov

• 

  Slow cooking

  Chanterelle Toasts

  Golden chanterelles fried in butter with garlic and thyme, piled on sourdough with a spoonful of crème fraîche.

  4 min read Serves 2 Best in Aug–Oct

• 

  Baking

  Nettle & Wild Garlic Soda Bread

  A green-flecked soda bread studded with wild garlic, best eaten warm from the oven with salted butter.

  5 min read Serves 8 Best in Mar–May