Forage

Growing up I had never seen or heard about a hawthorn, mainly because in the Netherlands there aren’t that many. But in Ireland, they are everywhere. You see them in the parks, and next to the roads, sometimes they’re thin and small and other times tall and unruly. But the blossom makes the whole countryside come alive, the clusters of white flowers that filled every nook and cranny. Later I saw the berries and wondered if I could eat them. Turns out you can!

Nettles are your best friend. In times past, people believed that they purified the blood, got rid of rheumatism, helped with long and airway problems, and much more. It depends on the specific area of what type of other ailments people believed it cured, but they all believed that it was an all-round good herb. But people have now figured out that there is actually merit to some uses of nettle, namely hay fever.