We have recently returned from Rhodes, where we discovered that many restaurants have something called “Wild Greens” on their menus.
Asking the waiter about these wild greens, they responded that most restaurants source them from the local meadows close to the restaurant, and that there are many varieties one can find. This reminded me that Perivale Park is the source of much that you can eat! I first wrote about this back in 2021, where the wild mustard shoots make for an excellent vegetable for the dinner plate (albeit a bit too bitter for my own tastes). Now Ros sends me a photo of another root vegetable to be found in the park. Can you tell what the below is?
One corner of the park has a good crop (and it is also to be found in Greenford Hall allotments). It also joins the regular crop of Wild Garlic which appears in April, the mushrooms in the autumn (which may not actually be edible) and of course the fruits from the orchard, which rarely stay on the trees for long once they are approaching ripeness (and are often hoovered up even before they are ripe!). Perhaps this year there will even be a good crop of cob nuts!
How many other wild crops are there in the park? I suspect most people do not realise that there is so much that can be eaten.