Dave's blog

This featured in the Source magazine a  year or two ago, a recent forum post prompted me to resurrect it – hope you enjoy.

Last summer I visited Monkey World, a picturesque Dorset home to mistreated apes and monkeys from across the globe. To my amazement I saw Capuchin monkeys picking blackberries and an Orang-Utan sifting through a lawn of mixed weeds, including noxious creeping buttercups, to pick out harmless clover.

I was amazed by this as Orang-Utans are native to Borneo & Sumatra and the Capuchin to Central or South America, yet they can pick out plants seemingly unfamiliar to them and recognize them as food. Add this to the fact that both the primates in question were in captivity for most of their lives and it begs the question, how do they know what to eat?

Coming from a species of higher ape, more commonly known as human, I have to wonder how I and my species would fare in the jungles of Borneo? Would I be able to distinguish food plants from poisonous ones?

It is tragic that we seem to have all but lost touch with this ability. At one time we would have perhaps innately known what was food and what might have us running for the nearest toilet, or worse still, the nearest hospital. I have heard rather dubious claims that people are ‘drawn’ to plants, yet I have known people ‘drawn’ to groundsel and ragwort – both highly poisonous plants! The truth is perhaps has a lot more to do trial and error than it does with a ‘magical’ connection to plants. Although I would not recommend it, picking a little at a time, not so much it would poison us and waiting to see the effects would be a perfect way of finding what was edible and what definitely wasn’t. We must have got it wrong at times but those who did cut themselves out of the gene pool and wouldn’t have passed that information down to their offspring.

Add this passed on knowledge to the lack of outside distraction, no TV, no internet, magazines or even books and our ancestors would have been able to be much more ‘in tune’ with their surroundings. Subtle clues plants give us would have not been lost on them. As we fill our heads with the latest celebrity gossip or how to use our mobile phones, theirs would have been buzzing with seasonal knowledge of the plants around them (and no doubt who was sleeping with who in the next tribe!)

So what can we do to regain this lost knowledge? Well the way I learned was to walk around with an expert who’s Grandfather had taught him. This triggered off more study and I bought myself Richard Mabley’s Food for Free and a few field guides of wild flowers, mushrooms and trees. I would cross reference my finds in as many books as possible and would use websites such Google images as a visual resource and plants for a future as a written one. Plants for a future is a fantastic website, any plant imaginable is on there, it’s where I learned you could eat both Himalayan honeysuckle berries (not to be mistaken with regular honeysuckle!) and fuchsia berries.

I now teach wild food and run courses in Totnes, Devon. For me it is a fascinating subject and when I’m hanging from a tree filling a bag full of fruit I know I’m in touch with my inner monkey!

I made the decision a while ago that, rather than a typical gardening or allotment blog, I would have my blog as a kind of online diary and a place to put short stories and bits of comic writing that may not necessarily fit in with the main website. It seems to me there are plenty of gardening websites around and if you want gardening or foraging advice from me or Andy, the main website www.selfsufficientish.com has so much information there is really no need to put it in a blog.

With an online diary like this you do have to make a decision of how much of your life you add to it.  My trouble is, it is easy for me, tucked down in rural Devon, to forget that anyone reads it at all.   Which begs the question, do I really want EVERYONE knowing all my business at the click of a mouse?

Until relatively recently I didn’t really consider this, it wasn’t until  I chatted to people who seem to know a lot more about my life than I’ve told them. I felt a bit uncomfortable with this, it sounds really snobby but I couldn’t help thinking ‘well I didn’t really write that for you?’.  I mean do other bloggers out there write for the kid who serves them at their local shop or for that neighbour you nod to but know nothing about?

Aside from this I generally write if someone has pissed me off, I’m feeling sorry for myself or perhaps when I’ve come up with something silly. When things are going fine or I’m busy on some project I don’t really write much.

So, like a lot of other bloggers, not only is there a slightly skewed view of me on the net, I’m the bloody one putting it there!

Then there are the spammers. I’ve poured my heart into the odd blog post only to find comments by people selling carpets or dodgy websites.  I get an email when people comment and sometimes I think ‘oh it was that post, I hope I’ve reached someone’, then all I get back is ‘want to see xxxx girls’ from some dodgy Russian, not really what I had in mind.

I will however continue to blog, it is not only a cathartic and enjoyable experience to write, it’s nice to know people read it. I don’t care that it’s not a huge amount of people; it’s just nice to know some people do, I just sometimes wish I could choose them