Cleavers / Sticky Willies - Galium Aparine

[Pandabean]

I was just wonder if anyone out there uses Cleavers / Sticky Willies - Galium Aparine and if so how do you use it?

Other than the main use of grabbing a loading and sticking it to someones back.

 

[Miyagi]

Other than that use, yes I use them.

I use the tops and chop them up (like you would with parsley) and add them to soups and stews.

If you chop them up and dry them you can store them like bay leaves or dried herbs and use as needed, but to be honest, there's never a shortage until Winter.

Hope this helps,

Liam

 

[Pandabean]

Thanks, I take it you can pick the leaves off and eat them as they are? But I guess you need to chew it right down so it doesn't catch as it goes down.

What other things can you do with then?

I have hedgerow medicine and its a great book but I was looking to expand on that. Like how do you prepare the coffee or tea.

 

[Geoff Dann]

Thanks, I take it you can pick the leaves off and eat them as they are? But I guess you need to chew it right down so it doesn't catch as it goes down.

Actually, once you get over the thought of it "catching as it goes down" you'll find out it doesn't. Although it is always best to chew your food before swallowing...

What other things can you do with then?

Some people make juice from it.

I have hedgerow medicine and its a great book but I was looking to expand on that.

Then you'll need the Forager Handbook by Miles Irving.

 

[calibanzwei]

Ive tried the coffee - it's passable...
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13260

 

[Limaed]

I find it makes an easy to collect good tinder.

 

[Ross Bowyer]

The Elizabethans used it as a slimming aid, they would make it into a pulp, mix with hot water and drink. It metabolises fat stored in the body, so one to avoid in a survival situation, where you need to hold on to those reserves.

Ross

 

[NetFrog]

I tried some raw over the weekend and found it to be like eating a cats tongue/velcro and decided it wasn't for me. I'm keen to try the coffee from it sometime though, perhaps this coming weekend. As it grows in abundance with nettles I might hazard a try at some nettle and sticky willy soup.

 

[Pandabean]

The Forager Handbook looks interesting. I may have a look into that next.

For making it into drinks are there specific parts such as for the coffee its the seeds when they are brown? What about the pulp that youmentioned Ross?

 

[andyn]

As it grows in abundance with nettles I might hazard a try at some nettle and sticky willy soup.

Don't bet on that being particually nice! lol.

They are best eaten when still young in April/May time. They will be starting to toughen up now. Its not a spring green I find very interesting, but at a push it fills a hole.

 

[Shingsowa]

They make quite a good impropmtu strainer/coarse sieve if you make a sort of mat out of them, with stems laid in both directions.

 

[Geoff Dann]

The Forager Handbook looks interesting. I may have a look into that next.

It is completely useless as an identification guide, but that's not what it is for. The pictures are black and white, and hopeless. It is, however, packed with useful information.

 

[dozzer]

what do sticky willies taste like? lol are they actually any good?

 

[Iona]

No! They taste like yuck. But the juice is a great spring tonic/liver cleanse, and They're one our faves crushed and juiced as a poultice for bites, stings, cuts and grazes... the juice stains all the quicks round your fingernails so you look like a grubby beggar for a week though!

 

[mark oriel]

I crushed them down pestle and mortar added a little water then put it in the fridge. Then every morning the ideea was to take a spoonfull every day, it tastes like silage smells (so it must be good for you). We took it for a week and done our bit for hedgerow medicine. The really interesting thing that I witnessed a while ago was the springer spaniel was due for worming and she was eating goose grass all the time, since worming she has stopped eating the goose grass, weird ye!!

 

[Native Nathan]

I have eaten them Blanched, that way they loose their Velcro like texture, and they aren't that bad, (They aren't especially good either though)

If the have the sticky balls on them don't eat them, the taste BAD!!!!!!