A Trip to the Marshes as Nature Shifts into Late Spring

For my daily walk today, I headed to Hackney Marshes in search of two things: plants and peace. As always, the Marshes didn’t let me down.

Carefully dodging two meters between people over the canal bridge and along concrete paths, I found myself under the gentle sea-breeze rustle of the huge Black Poplar trees that line the River Lea. I breathed a sigh of relief - there’s something so wild and special about this place. Walking East along the river under Elder, Plane and White Willow trees, I noticed what I was seeing, hearing and felt to connect with my surroundings. I felt my feet on the ground, dappled sunlight and cool breeze against my skin and heard the call of crows above as greens, blues and whites swam into my field of vision. Perched on a small island in the middle of the river, I saw at least ten different species of waterbird from the glorious to the familiar - the graceful resident heron, sleek black cormorants, canadian geese, egyptian geese, swans and recently hatched ducklings waddling after their parents. I enjoyed watching them feeding, grooming and sunning themselves side by side.

Heading deeper into the Marshes, among the magical sway of the cow parsley, I searched for a clean patch of nettles and cleavers. It occurred to me that the gorgeous colours of the spring flowers - daffodils, bluebells, crocuses, violets and dandelions - are making way for the white flowers of later spring - cow parsley, wild garlic, garlic mustard flowers, white dead nettle, dandelion seed heads, elderflowers. Such a simple marker of the transition from early to late spring.
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With the powerful, satisfying taste of garlic mustard flowers on my tongue, I found a patch of nettles and donned protective cloves to nip 2 large handfuls of nettle tips and cleaver stalks for fresh tea and sweet potato, nettle and cleaver soup that evening. The cleavers are about to flower so now is the last moment of the season to pick some and it’s the perfect time to harvest nettles, while their growth is new before they flower.

Excited to get cooking, I headed home to wash and chop my harvest. In a large pan, I sweated an onion, 2 gloves of garlic and ginger, then added a chopped sweet potato and some vegetable stock. I cooked this down until the sweet potato was soft, then added the nettles and cleavers to cook for a minute, and blitzed them all together. The nettles only need to be blanched in water for a minute to loose their sting. To serve, I warmed some bread and drizzled olive oil, pepper and stirred in a dollop of vegan yogurt to the soup. Simple, free and full of cleansing and restorative vitamins and minerals, I’m touched by just how much the Marshes offered me today.

If you missed it before see Amy’s full guide to connecting with Nature this spring. It’s packed with activities for all ages and you can give it a go when out on walk or even in the area close to your home.

Words and Pictures by Amy Birtles