Which flowers are edible

A.� There are thought to be over 100 edible plants in the UK hedgerow. Foragers can also find wild parsnip or celery in parts of East Anglia, wild cabbage, blackberries, elderberries and fungi.

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Borage, for instance, has cucumber-tasting leaves which can be added to salads. They're great served in a jug of Pimms, but can be cooked like spinach, with a little salt and butter.

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Dandelion leaves can be bitter, but if you place a large flower pot over a plant, you will make the leaves more palatable by starving them of light. The result is a salad, the French call pissenlit au lard, crispy bacon served on dandelion leaves. The roots can also be dried and roasted as a coffee alternative.

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Chickweed

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Good King Henry grows by the road and looks like a weed, although it was once a vegetable. The seed can be used like buckwheat to make bread. It was given its name to distinguish it from the German herb, Bad Henry.

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Q.� What about nettles

A.� They have long been used as a source of vitamin C and iron. The Tibetan Milraspa was said to eat nothing else, until he turned green. The young leaves are best and they should be cooked for 15 minutes with salt, Mash them as a sidedish or use in soup.

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This recipe, from London chef Alastair Little, suggests using 1lb nettles.

Take:

1 large onion

2 large potatoes

1 large leek

240/ 1lb nettles

55g/2oz butter

1pt chicken stock

salt and pepper

4 tablespoons of creme fraiche to serve

Put water in a saucepan and bring to boil. Dice potatoes, onions and leeks, and using rubber gloves, strip the leaves off the nettles. Wash them and place in a blanching basket.

Melt butter in a pan over a low heat and sweat the vegetables for five minutes. Cover with stock and simmer until just cooked.

Liquidise the contents of the pan and return to saucepan. Dip the basket of nettles into a pan of boiling water for 60 seconds. Refresh in cold water and put in liquidiser while still wet. Blend to a puree. Add nettle puree to basic vegetable mixture, taste and season. Serve with a spoon of creme fraiche floating on top.

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Q.� What is samphire

A.� It's a wild plant that grows on the salt flats of Western Europe's beaches. It is succulent and fleshy and its salty, spinach-like flavour works well with coastal fish such as sea bass, sea trout and wild salmon. It is rare and expensive, and people should pick the plant very carefully because the whole root can come away.

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Q.� How do you make sloe-gin

A.� This tiny, marble-sized fruit is forefather to every plum. Each sloe should be pierced with a skewer. Half fill a container with an equal weight of sloes and sugar. FIll to the top with gin. Leave for two months, shaking from time to time. The result is a deep pink, sweet-sour liqueur and the sloes have become edible.

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By Katharine MacColl