What I Found This Week: A Late April Foraging Diary

It has been a full week. Not just in terms of content — seven posts, including deep dives into rosmarinic acid, the yarrow frittata, foraging and the gut microbiome, and the dandelion liver detox claim — but also in terms of what’s been happening outside. Because April has surged this week. The hedgerows look genuinely different from seven days ago.

Sunday posts are where I get to talk about that. The walks, the finds, the moments that remind me why all the PubMed deep-dives are worth it. So let’s go.

Monday Morning: The Ground Ivy Revelation

It started on Monday morning, very early — the dog needed walking before the rest of the day began. We took the lane that runs behind the allotments and out onto the chalk bank, and I noticed that the ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) had completely taken over the base of the south-facing bank. Not a few plants. Hundreds of them — a purple-blue carpet of tiny flowers running for thirty metres along the sheltered foot of the hedge.

I’d been planning to write about ground ivy anyway, but standing there in the early light with the dog sniffing at everything and the bees working the flowers, I found myself properly looking at the plant for the first time this season. Really looking — the kidney-shaped leaves with their scalloped edges, the tiny hooded flowers in pairs up the square stem, the way the whole colony creeps and roots from every node. It smelled extraordinary when I crushed a leaf: that particular mint-adjacent, slightly medicinal aromatic that is just and only ground ivy.

This is why I started foraging properly, a decade ago. Not for the food, initially. For this — for the experience of suddenly seeing a plant you’ve walked past a hundred times as if for the first time. The recognition. The attention it demands of you.

I brought a carrier bag full home. Cold-infused half of it. Made the ground ivy dressing I mentioned in Wednesday’s rosmarinic acid post — olive oil, lemon, garlic, a handful of chopped growing tips. It’s earthy and slightly bitter and really quite good.

Wednesday: The Yarrow Find

I’ve been keeping an eye on the dry grassland at the edge of the nature reserve — a south-facing slope that warms up earlier than anywhere else nearby — for yarrow since March. By Wednesday, the plants had pushed up enough fresh growth to harvest. I collected the young feathery leaves with scissors, taking only the growing tips, leaving the rosette intact.

The smell is remarkable — camphorous, medicinal, complex in a way that instantly explains why this plant has been used for three thousand years. I made the frittata from Thursday’s post that evening. The recipe I published is exactly what I ate, which is how it should be.

A note on the smell as an identification tool: the aromatic smell when you crush the leaves is your primary differentiator from toxic lookalikes (hemlock and fool’s parsley have no such smell). This is true and important — but it’s worth adding that the smell is really quite distinctive and enjoyable once you know it. Yarrow has one of the most distinctive aromatic signatures of any British wild plant. You’ll recognise it instantly next time.

Thursday: The Dandelion Question

I get asked about dandelion more than almost any other plant. “Is it really good for your liver?” “Should I be doing a dandelion root detox?” I spent Thursday writing the myth-busting post, and the process was genuinely satisfying. Not because I enjoy deflating claims — I don’t — but because the honest picture is more interesting than either the hype or the dismissal.

Dandelion does have real science behind it. Taraxasterol has genuinely been shown to protect against liver damage in animal models. The diuretic effect has a small human study behind it. The bitter digestive tonic use is biologically plausible. None of this requires “liver detox” language to be worth knowing — and the nutritional profile is genuinely impressive for a plant you can pick from your garden.

Friday: What the Gut Microbiome Post Made Me Think About

Writing about the Baka forager-horticulturalist microbiome research on Friday gave me something to chew on all weekend. The finding that stuck was the “microbiome modernisation process” framing — the idea that microbial diversity is being progressively lost as diets simplify, and that this loss is specifically associated with the disappearance of wild plant foods.

I think about this when I’m in the supermarket looking at the produce section. The extraordinary uniformity of it. Ten apple varieties, all bred for sweetness and shelf life. Salad leaves selected for blandness. The structural and chemical complexity that the gut microbiome spent millions of years adapting to process is almost entirely absent. A foraging walk adds that complexity back — not as a supplement, but as the whole thing. Plant matrix and fibre and polyphenols and unusual terpenoids and bitter sesquiterpene lactones, delivered in the form the gut has co-evolved to handle. (Full science in Friday’s post.)

The Science Behind Stopping and Looking

One last thing. There’s a growing body of research on what ecologists call “attentional restoration” — the idea that engaged natural environments restore directed attention in ways that built environments cannot. Kaplan and Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory was formalised in the 1980s and supported extensively since (Kaplan S., Journal of Environmental Psychology, 1995). Foraging is, among other things, an enforced practice of this kind of attention. You cannot identify plants while looking at your phone. You have to slow down, get close, use multiple senses — look at the leaf shape, check the stem, smell the crushed leaf. The attention itself, I think, is part of the medicine.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this Sunday morning, with a glass of cold ground ivy infusion in one hand and the dog asleep in a patch of sunlight on the kitchen floor.

What’s Coming Next Week

• Hawthorn blossom (Crataegus monogyna) is days from peak in most of England — the white clouds of flowers that cover the hedge for about ten days before they fall. The most visually spectacular moment in the British foraging calendar. Edible, mildly almond-scented, beautiful in fritters or infused in vinegar.
• Elderflower (Sambucus nigra) buds are forming. Full flowering is probably 2–3 weeks away in most of England, but find your elder trees this weekend so you’re ready when they open. The season is short and waits for no one.
• Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) is moving past peak in many lowland areas. Enjoy the last tender leaves this week; the flowers are edible and beautiful on salads.
• White dead-nettle (Lamium album) is in full flower — the sweet flowers are edible raw and at their best right now.

There’s a lot to look for. I’ll be out again tomorrow morning.

If you’d like to learn to identify these plants in person, I run foraging workshops throughout spring and summer — we walk, find, taste, and talk through the science together. Details at chloearchard.com. And if the broader picture — seasonal eating, gut health, epigenetics, circadian rhythm — is something you want to explore properly, The Cellular Reset is built for exactly that.

References

Rampelli S et al. The gut microbiome of Baka forager-horticulturalists from Cameroon is optimized for wild plant foods. iScience. 2024;27(3):109211. PMC10904984.
Kaplan S. The restorative benefits of nature: toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 1995;15(3):169–182.

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This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Wild plants can be dangerous if misidentified. Never consume any wild plant unless you are completely confident in your identification. If in doubt, leave it out. Always consult your GP before using wild plants medicinally, particularly if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking medication.

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