If you're keen to really understand plants buy a seasonal pass for one walk per season with Tamara Colchester.
These foraging walks will take us on a journey through the shifting seasons – each with its own scents, colours, tastes and sensations. By paying close attention to the plant and animal worlds around us, we are brought into contact with the aliveness of the earth and the way it echoes through our own wild nature.
Each of these seasonal walks will introduce you to around 15 of the wild plants in your local area as well as signs of the birds and animals who also rely on them for food and medicine.
We hope that these experiences will be the beginning of a lifelong relationship that will only get richer as you go deeper. For more on each season read on below!
Meet our host!
Tamara Colchester is a wild food teacher and writer who guides people in the old ways of foraging as a route to a simpler, more connected way of life. Trained by renowned wild food teacher and author Ffyona Campbell, she now travels the UK reintroducing people to our wild heritage. Incorporating her interest in psychotherapy and healing (she trained at Tavistock & Portman), she specialises in using foraging and tracking techniques as a means of helping those suffering from PTSD, Depression and Anxiety, as well as those who are simply interested in deepening their relationship with their environment and the food we eat.
Seasons
Spring
As we wake from winter’s sleep, spring offers a rebirth. A great upward rush of energy causes wild greens to surface, delicate blossoms to bloom and sap to rise in the stirring trees.
Walking at this time of year brings our bodies back to LIFE, as we begin to flush our sluggish systems with a vivid hit of green and feel the playful dance of life meeting life, played out by the animals birds and insects that weave around our human lives.
Summer
As the sun reaches its zenith and life follows suit, we experience a pivot. Solar energy has nurtured the fecund union of spring and seeds, fruit and grains gather the sun’s riches.
Walking at this time allows us appreciate the moment in which everything reaches a crescendo and we are invited to play, swim and rest in warmth before the gathering of autumn begins.
Autumn
Nourishment is autumn’s watchword - a great profusion of nuts, mushrooms and berries, but also a second flush of wild greens. The woods call us towards their mysteries - a rich enticement to spend time amidst the falling leaves and golden light of this abundant time of year.
Walking at this time invites us to gather, process and store, keeping an eye on winter, as we enjoy the last luxurious days of warmth.