17th May to 23rd May

The week started of with me building a new staging/rack for my herbs and veggies plants. I know this has nothing to dimwit the countryside but i feel that growing your own herbs and veg is very similar to foraging for wild edibles.

Thursday 20th found me and my pooches having a ramble around Two Tree Island at Old Leigh. This area is located via the road that runs behind the railway station and runs out towards the end of the island at the slipway. Parking in the big car park at the end you walk to the righthand side and through a small opening and you then have a nice area to wander around which is bordered by water on three sides. Theres lots of wildfowl here to see as well as the usual bird life and there is even a bird watching hide and splash of water to watch. Along our walk there was two large piles of sand seemingly just dumped in the grass which i thought was odd until i spotted a sign explaining that these sand piles were for the benefit of burrowing bees and other insects, what good idea.

Morning of the 21st and we were nearly getting blown of the sea wall at Great Wakering as the wind howled. Not much exciting to report from this walk as the wind just made it a little unpleasant to be out. I did find a large patch of Wild Fennel which I will harvesting a few tops off soon which was good.

On the 23rd I was back walking the pathways of Cherry Orchard Jubilee Park in better weather than the previous couple of days. We took our usual walk but this time i deviated slightly and walked through a small orchard area and made a great find there. Hidden in the long grass was a beautiful specimen of a GREEN WINGED ORCHID, I,,ve already written about them a couple of posts ago, which i have been trying to find for a few weeks now. I walked further along than normal and explored some new areas of a woodland there. A cracking few miles walk just up the road from where i live…