{"id":824,"date":"2023-03-29T16:19:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T15:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/?p=824"},"modified":"2023-03-30T12:32:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-30T11:32:32","slug":"i-tried-foraging-wild-garlic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/i-tried-foraging-wild-garlic\/","title":{"rendered":"I tried foraging for wild garlic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Smells like victory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-825\" width=\"769\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf.png 543w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf-293x165.png 293w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-825\" width=\"769\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf.png 543w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2023\/03\/Wild-Garlic-Leaf-293x165.png 293w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Credit: Isaac Murphy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As a Londoner with more time spent underground than with the city\u2019s flora, my knowledge of foraging is embarrassingly poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, moving from London to Wales \u2013 which has nearly three times more common land than England \u2013 was the perfect excuse to improve my botanical skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through some research, I found that wild garlic is common across the UK and is a good entry-level plant to forage \u2013 it can be eaten raw and is relatively simple to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I used a variety of apps including <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/plantnet\/id600547573\">PlantNet<\/a> to help find the wild garlic in Cardiff\u2019s Bute Park without eating the similarly looking, but poisonous, lily of the valley. After an hour or so of searching, I found a cluster of wild garlic leaves sprouting from the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The PlantNet app asks you to take a picture of a plant to identify it. Once snapped, the app provides a list of plants in order of visual similarity, complete with images to cross-reference with your own.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I took a picture and was greeted with an 85% match for wild garlic. However, I did not feel confident enough to rely on imagery alone to stop an untimely death-by-nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wild Food UK\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildfooduk.com\">hedgerow guide<\/a> provided an encyclopaedic knowledge of British flora, including information on whether something is edible or poisonous. You can search for a plant by either inputting its name or characteristics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Entries also have a \u201cpossible confusion\u201d section, in which I learnt about lily of the valley. The section clearly explains that wild garlic\u2019s stems have one leaf, compared to lily of the valley\u2019s two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, the dead giveaway is the smell: wild garlic stinks of garlic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a quick whiff, I tore a handful of leaves and put them in my mesh pouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of my foraging time was spent searching for wild garlic, as well as photographing anything that looked remotely edible with PlantNet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It made a refreshing change to traipsing through the park to force some fresh air into my lungs; having a task to complete made me feel connected with nature, and although my forage was small, it felt wildly mighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more info on foraging (plus a quick, easy recipe for wild garlic and mushroom risotto), check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/cardiffmagazinejournalism\/docs\/gorp_3_pdfs?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=cardiffjournalism.co.uk\">latest issue of GORP<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GORP member Isaac Murphy swaps London&#8217;s concrete landscape for a wild garlic chase in Cardiff\u2019s Bute Park<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[46,113,18],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights","tag-food","tag-foraging","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/gorp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}