When Lucy Buckle, 34, lost her job as a pharmacy manager amid the pandemic, she soon realised she was in no rush to go back to work.
Fed up of working 50 hours a week and constantly feeling under pressure, she decided to make a serious change, and in June 2020 became a full-time forager.
Lucy says that foraging for food in the wild has saved her hundreds of pounds on her household bills, and she’s now paid to teach others her skills – nearly matching her previous earnings.
‘It wasn’t until I left my job that I realised how miserable I was, said Lucy, who lives with her bus driver wife Shell Buckle, 42, and their dogs Holly and Pippa.
‘Foraging is amazing. I just pop out every morning to walk the dogs and pick up some nettles to make my tea.
‘I call the local park – Broxtowe Country Park – my foraging supermarket, I just grab everything I need from it.’
Lucy had first tried foraging when she was just four years old, but her job loss prompted her to return to that hobby and turn it into a lifestyle.
Swapping suits for comfy dungarees and a brief case for a wicker basket, she has not looked back.
She said: ‘It was second nature to pick fruit and vegetables in the wild. But when I moved to the city, aged 18, it became a little harder.
‘I started managing a pharmacy in 2012 and doing over 50 hours a week. I had to wear a suit every day and even wore lipstick. I didn’t feel like myself.
‘I’m an active person, I’m happiest when I’m outside. So, being stuck in the office away from any natural light made me really unhappy. The whole time I just dreamed of going outside.’
Initially, when Lucy lost her £22,000-a-year job – meaning she took home around £1,500 after tax – she was scared she would not manage.
But thankfully, along with reducing her food bills dramatically, Lucy was able to sell the food she foraged on private land to local companies make extra money by offering classes.
She saves £300 a month by no longer travelling to work, plus £250 a month that she used to spend on work lunches and takeaways, and, through her classes and sales, makes around £1,300 month after tax.
Lucy, who lives just outside Nottingham’s city centre, now wants to spread the word about the brilliance of foraging.
‘It was amazing when I realised you could get so much in the city – along the canal bank or by the River Trent,’ she said.
‘I don’t think people realise how much you can find.
‘Obviously, foraging is great because of the environmental impact, there’s no plastic, air miles, or pesticides attached to your food.
‘But it’s a cheaper way to live, too. Between February and October, I don’t buy any salad, I pick everything. I go to the local park and will fill a massive wicker basket with delicious finds.
‘In the summer I can save at least £100 on the monthly food shop.
‘You have to get creative and cook what’s in season, but it’s delicious. You get such a sense of pride making it yourself.
Lucy's foraging calendar:
January – Winter mushrooms such as jelly ears and velvet shanks
February – Nettles, great for tea and hedge garlic, great in salads
March – Wild garlic, good for beginners, makes a fantastic pesto
April – Sticky weed, salad leaves
May – Wildflowers such as borage, tastes like cucumber, great in a gin and tonic or salad. Nasturtium are also edible, you can eat the leaves and flowers, they look beautiful and make a fancy salad
June – Elderflower, great for beginners and kids, makes cordial. Mushrooms are good in June also
July – Cherries, lots of cherry trees in Nottingham on every street corner, they are the first fruit you can harvest in the summer
August – month of fruit, great picking month for blackberries and plums, which are good to start with as all types are edible
September – Month of the mushroom. Especially great for boletes, a type of mushroom.
October – Great month for blewits, a nostalgic mushroom most people foraged with parents or grandparents. Easy to identify but only available for a few weeks in the month.
November – Pine needles for tea.
December – Nettles and winter mushrooms, three cornered leek, like an onion, it’s an invasive species so you can pick as much as you want.
‘Before I would be so stressed about work. Now I get up, take the dog for a walk and pick nettles for my tea and the fact I am so much happier makes me much nicer to be with.
‘I walk the dogs twice a day and forage at the same time. It’s a lot more relaxed, there’s something amazing about just being in the forest alone.
‘And I don’t need lunch money, as I take a camping stove and a frying pan with me, so I can make my lunch when I’m foraging.’
Lucy hopes that by highlighting all the great things you can find out in the wild, she’ll encourage people to give foraging a go and get creative with what they eat.
‘There are lots of things you can forage that people don’t even know you can eat,’ she explained.
‘Pine needles make a lovely tea if you brew them in hot water. I like to start my day with that.
‘My top tip is to use sticky weed, it’s very nutritional and makes a fantastic hangover cure.
‘Before you go to bed soak the weed in water in the fridge. When you drink it in the morning, it will just get rid of your headache.
‘I even make a caffeinated drink out of seeds of the sticky weed plant, as they’re really high in caffeine.
‘Foraging changes the way you live and eat.
“Shell and I eat seasonally now. Obviously, in the winter months it’s a bit more scarce and we’re more dependent on the supermarket.
‘But from February onwards, we really don’t need that much as we have so much locally.’
‘Being made redundant was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I spend my days in the forest. I’m living the dream.’
Lucy's tips for foraging:
Don’t munch on a hunch: always be sure to identify what it is clearly and if you do not know, do not eat it.
Start with what you know: get a good guide book. Lucy recommends Wild Food UK foraging pocket guide book
Start exploring close to home: forage locally, so you can keep an eye on the seasonal produce.
Be respectful: always leave 75% of potential forage behind for the plant and for fellow foragers. Try to pick up litter as you forage and leave the park in a better state then you found it to say thank you
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source https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/22/woman-made-redundant-in-pandemic-becomes-a-full-time-forager-14969754/
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