Wild Garlic - Is this the season?

[treadlightly]

I found loads of the stuff last year, around May time if I remember correctly. I went back to collect a load come June and it was all wilting and looking not to fresh. From what I have read it grows at its best from late winter until May. Can anyone confirm if this season is correct and that I should be going out collecting now? It is a fair hike from here to the patch but I will be going there Friday anyway, should I bring my shears for it as there is a good several hundred meters of the stuff growing along a huge stretch of woodland. I was hoping to make some pesto out of it!

When we found this patch, we knew it must be there, as we kept saying to each other. "Can you smell garlic?!" I would love to make the most of it this year and get a few jars pickled, pestoed etc..

Not sure about Scotland, it might be later for you, but in the Chilterns the wild garlic is out and ready for eating. Picked some on Tuesday and it was delicious. The leaves are still very young and fresh (no flowers yet) and they taste even better than later in the year. Its generally all gone by the end of May/early June.

 

[oldtimer]

Just be careful as garlic stored in oil at room temp, or too long in the fridge can produce Botulism...

Its never happend with me, but just to make you aware. http://www.garlic-central.com/dangers.html

Thanks for this one. For years I have habitually crushed raw garlic into olive oil and vinegar to make salad dressing in a jug and stored it in the fridge. I think you have explained some mysterious stomach upsets in the past and prevented future ones.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Wild garlic is about all year round. It's just the leaves and flowers that make a brief appearance.

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Found a good source locally but not sure how to preserve it as don't have much use for it fresh

Ordinary garlic & chives freeze well....wild garlic probably would too.

 

[slowworm]

So, ramsons are bulbless members of the chive family, which in turn is a memeber of the onion family, of which garlic also belongs to the same family. All one big happy family!

You mean a bulbed member of the chive family? It's also a perennial, I've grown it from seed and in the first year you get tiny little plants and after two or three they get big enough to flower.

A word of advice to any new forragers out there, as they build up their bulbs to over winter it's best not to strip all the leaves from one plant otherwise it might not be able to store enough to regrow next year.

 

[NetFrog]

Thanks Slowworm, some good info there. I am walking tomorrow and know a spot where it grows by the shedload so will pick some for my nightly stew!

Worth picking a few bulbs to eat?

 

[The Big Lebowski]

You mean a bulbed member of the chive family?

My mistake... 'Twas late.