On the hunt for Wild Garlic

I’ve been rabbiting on to my other half for a good few months (well almost a year) about wanting to find a patch of Wild Garlic and be able to try out some recipes, using it in the kitchen at home.

Last spring proved to be rather uneventful as after stumbling across a healthy crop of these beautifully fragrant, verdant beauties whilst on a weekend trek across the South Downs – blissfully unaware of what they actually were, we carried on our merry way. It was only after the event (typical) that I started to see a tidal wave of posts and recipes celebrating the versatility of this pretty little plant.

This weekend’s haul of fragrant Wild Garlic

You’re beginning to get the picture, right? I’ve developed a slightly bordering on the obsessive desire to hunt out these plants and not fail miserably in my quest this year to harvest a crop and put them to good use!

Sheer fluke of luck or divine intervention? I wasn’t waiting to find out and put what I’d learnt in driving lessons two decades ago to good use; the emergency stop. Jumping out of the car excitedly, there was a brief moment of doubt and questioning, ‘erm, are we sure this isn’t Lilly of the Valley?’, however reassured by the garlicky scent we picked a couple of good bunches of leaves to take home (doubling up as a garlic scented car air-freshener in the interim).

The Garlic Gods were clearly on my side then this weekend just gone; as we were driving down a little country lane in Kent, I jokingly said ‘keep your eyes peeled for Wild Garlic’… My wishes were answered as no sooner as the other half had finished the obligatory eye roll, we turned a corner and there it was, a glinting sea of green stretching out into the woodland.

**Lilly of the valley is poisonous. If you aren’t sure what you’ve found then best not to pick it and take the chance of whipping up a potentially poisonous batch of pesto!**