Families Go Wild in the Kitchen Garden!

Spring is officially here on Wednesday, so we thought we’d welcome the coming season with some cooking! Springtime is perfect for fresh spring greens, and there’s plenty on the farm to forage!

First though, we went to the farmyard to check if the chickens had any eggs for us. We found seven and put them gently in the bucket, which is lined with straw to give them a soft landing!

Next, we went on the hunt for some greens! Firstly we found three cornered leek, a member of the garlic and onion family. We smelled it and it smelled lovely. We harvested the leeks, then found dead nettles and cleavers, which we recognised. We moved along the grassy road and found small shoots of wild garlic, so we took some of them as well! We loved the smell, and one of our volunteers said it smelled ‘interesting’.

We then came back to the kitchen garden and harvested (and tasted) some sorrel, and lemonbalm. We split the greens into two - the cleavers and lemonbalm for herbal tea, and the rest to be cooked and eaten with the eggs. We then got to washing and chopping up the greens, and cracking eggs. We also got the fire going in the Kelly Kettle, to heat the water for our tea.

The greens looked so appetising! We heated up some butter on a camping stove and sauteed them for just a couple of minutes. We then got to cooking the omelette, which took a while, as we made it with 8 eggs!

After a while, the water was boiled, so we poured it over the cleavers and lemonbalm, which we had put in the teapot. Some of us put a bit of sugar in the tea to make it a bit sweeter, and we all liked the taste. We could definitely notice the lemonbalm, with it’s lovely citrus taste!

Finally, the omelette was ready, and we ate it together with bread and the sauteed greens. It was delicious!