The Broxtowe Country Park Clean-up has been organised by The Nottingham Forager, and is still on ongoing project you can get involved in.
The Nottingham Forager, Lucy Buckle, came up with the idea for the park clean up after she noticed how the site had been suffering from litter.
Lucy started being known as ‘The Nottingham Forager’ three years ago, after she created her website and begun offering private and community walks, foraging sessions, foraging supplies as well as locally made products.
She said: “I think now more than ever a connection with nature is really important for everyone, it’s one of the few things that has remained open throughout the pandemic.
“My plan is to extend the offer to other parks when we are allowed to travel further, potentially going out in small groups.”
The clean-up started towards the end of January, and so far 10 full bin bags of rubbish have been removed from the park.
Due to the current pandemic restrictions people are unable to work in groups when cleaning up the park, so instead local people are going by themselves as part of their daily exercise.
They then post a photo of the rubbish they collected to the Broxtowe Country Park clean-up page, where Lucy then gives them a voucher for a free foraging session once the restrictions are eased.
Originally foraging was something Lucy did alongside her main job, but after being made redundant last year she finally got her chance to pursue foraging full time.
She said: “I started out picking blackberries with my grandparents as a child, and always looked forward to it.
“As I got older, I started to look into other things I could get for free from the wild, and I started to share my findings and recipe’s on social media with friends and family.”
Lucy prides herself on being able to offer low cost walks to Nottingham residents, and also offers a barter system for her community walks.
Meaning people can choose to pick litter or trade homemade/homegrown goods instead of payments, which are pay as you feel/can.
Lucy also works with local community gardens to offer low cost session for their community, as well as with Oak Tree Alpaca Farm in Woodborough where she offers private foraging tours of their farmlands.
Nottingham’s ancient woodlands are full of wild food, and Lucy forages a wide variety of mushrooms, spring greens, fruits and nuts.
She also uses the freshest food so she knows where everything comes from, and makes a variety of jams, crumbles, pies, salads, and smoothies.
None of which has a negative impact on the environment as there is no packaging, no air miles and no pesticides.
By Laycie Beck
