The joy of hedgerow foraging

Hedgerows are one of those things that most of us simply take for granted. Drive, walk, cycle or ride through the English countryside and you’re likely to see fields bounded by hedges, which change with the seasons. Blossoming in the spring, full of colour and berries in the autumn, and sprouting wildly thorugh the summer months.

They are certainly having their moment in the sun. In the 1980s, farmers were encouraged under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy to grub them up (dig them up, in laymen’s speak) in a bid to create larger fields, and grow more food. 23 per cent of the nation’s hedgerows were lost in that decade. But now Defra have recognised the benefits of hedgerows, and ecologists, rewilding fanatics and many of the more ecologically-minded farmers and landowners are restoring and replanting hedgerows. Under their new ‘sustainable farming incentive’, Defra will be encouraging hedgerow management as they view hedges as playing an important role in carbon sequestration.