Recently there has been a lot of talk about how to find food for free and with autumn just around the corner, now is the time to start foraging.

But is this really a good idea? We all know that blackberries from the side of the road may have an unusually smoky flavour and any fruit on footpaths at dog height are a no-no, but other taboos are often less obvious. Swan is obviously off the menu, as is much of our British wildlife and many of us don’t have the heart to shoot and skin anything that is legal to kill, such as rabbit.

Ethics aside, I’m still not sure that foraging is a good idea.

On a personal level, the idea of eating for free at a time when food prices are high has an obvious appeal but what if everyone did it? There’s a reason why we are no longer hunter gatherers, we started farming for a reason. There are plenty of nettles for everyone to have nettle tea but as we’ve seen with the declining fish stocks, human populations are too high for everyone to help themselves.

There’s also something unbalanced about helping yourself to nature’s bounty: there’s no give, only take, it’s just not sustainable. Foraging isn’t an alternative to growing your own and its likely to lead to a tragedy of the common situation where we all loose out.

Then there is the impact on our birds and wildlife to consider; who feeds then when we’ve eaten all their food?

Having said that, living in a rural area gives me a distinct advantage over the city dwellers and an apple and blackberry crumble for free is rather tempting.

This Soapbox blog was submitted by Countryfile Magazine reader, Holly Foat (left).

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Eating your enemy - How to eat the landscape

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For those of us who dream about living in the country, or even dream about getting a garden; our only hope is an allotment. After three and a half years on the waiting list and approaching my 23rd Birthday, I have finally got one! I can’t tell you how excited I was, even more so that it already had rhubarb growing on it and what I guess was a shed at one point. 

A list of do’s and don’ts came through my door and I was amazed to find out that I could keep chickens if I wanted to. However, I have no idea where to start. Like the brat Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate factory, I heard myself saying; I want the whole world on my allotment. I want chickens, and fruit, and vegetables, a pond, orchard trees, berries and bushes and so much more. So can I? Or even, should I?

The plot is larger than I thought and I probably could put a lot of these things on my pitch, but not all things will grow. Plus, my father tells me you need three or four chickens otherwise they die from loneliness. How tragic. What would I do with that many chickens? What would I do with that many eggs? So I think chickens are off the table, pardon the pun.

So the next couple of weeks, my nose will be submerged in an A-Z of vegetables and only raised to ask my fellow allotment holders about the soil. But the question still remains, how do I get the best out of my allotment? I guess only time will tell. In the mean time, I will tippy toe back and forth waiting for that moment when they hand me over the key. 

Freya Morris lives in Bristol.

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I was left puzzled after watching Countryfile on April 5th. Matt Baker reported on repairing years of erosion on the fell paths and also the relatively new pursuit of ghyll scrambling. Did anyone else feel there was a contradiction between these two articles?

Path erosion causes ugly clefts and damages large areas of ground. It is repairable but at a cost in terms of both money and energy. In 20 years time will the effects of ghyll scrambling be so easy to renovate? Water courses and their banks provide a unique environment for both flora and fauna, from moist ground to deeper water, turbulent oxygenating waterfalls, and rocky outcrops that provide shelter and areas of quieter water.

Water running through a ghyll serves the wildlife both within its waters and along the full length of the stream. Disturbing stones and damaging the stream bed will have repercussions ranging from distressing the wildlife and destroying their shelter through to diverting an established water course which will have knock on effects to established plant life and animals further down stream.

Path erosion is serious enough but creatures who rely on the ecology of the eroded path areas are perhaps more able to move. The same is not so true of creatures and plants established in and around a stream when the complex environment is disturbed or destroyed.

I do despair sometimes that the countryside is being used as a theme park providing all the thrills and spills of Alton Towers but with no thought for the invasion and disturbance to the natural inhabitants which, once destroyed, can rarely be replaced.

What next? Perhaps dry stone wall hurdling…

Sue Bebbington lives on the Isle of Mull.

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