New site and database build!

Genesis

I’d built up my mental foraging database. It was enough to get by and satisfy my curiosities when I was in the woods. I knew some things I could eat or use, and I knew what not to eat (pretty much anything I didn’t recognise). But it wasn’t until I began taking a real interest in foraging that I realised just how piecemeal and lacking my knowledge was. I also realised how many interesting tidbits I’d learned and forgotten.

I wouldn’t often take much with me on my excursions—just a bottle of water or cider, a little cotton tote bag, and my phone. I found that my learning style was ‘in the field’, but I hate being weighed down with kit. I realised I was using my phone (forever on silent)to take notes, photographs and document my findings more than anything else. The fewer obstacles to my immersion, the better. But that also meant I needed a solid internet connection to access the bookmarks and notes I’d saved.

On rainy days, I began typing up my notes to a place I could access whenever I wanted. I wanted to consolidate my knowledge and create an easily accessible database that I could also add to while in the field.

Nowadays, I take at least one fungi guidebook with me when I’m setting out deliberately, but for the most part, the files I created and kept private are still my go-to.

Why I’m making my notes into this site

This site is my attempt to synthesise those years of notes, musings, and realisations so that I can identify any gaps and have a place I can access with no/limited mobile signal. I hope you find it useful. I deliberately built the site from scratch, learning basic HTML and CSS to create a fast, light, and useful resource.

Mark over at Galloway Wild Foods has a wonderful site. So much of what he has written over the years rings true—but there is one small snippet I read a few years ago that really stuck with me. Roger Phillips, who authored many really bloody excellent guides on our natural world, is quoted as saying, when asked what inspired him to undertake the making of Mushrooms (one of the best books on UK fungi), “Because I knew absolutely nothing about fungi!”

This resonated with me and what I wanted to achieve with my notes, and in turn, this site. If you want to really learn, then make notes, distil, synthesise, and then write as if you’re educating others.

Welcome to the foragers diary!