Fruits of the forest

It’s autumn again – season of abundance in the forest. Shiny, colourful berries adorn trees and bushes, while mushrooms of many shapes, colours and sizes have emerged from the forest floor. I try to forage mushrooms when time permits, although it is a challenge to get to the mushrooms before the slugs and maggots do! (Particularly so with ceps, the tastiest prize of the mushroom hunter). Also very tasty are hedgehog mushrooms, which grow abundantly in parts of Comar Wood, along with the beautiful orangey-yellow chanterelle. As well as mushrooms, Jamie, the kids and I always make time to pick lots of blackberries during early autumn. These are put into the freezer and at some point made into our main supply of jam for the year, with some put aside for bramble and apple crumbles and the like.

When we first bought Comar Wood, the dense spruce trees covering much of the area meant that there were very few blackberry-producing patches, apart from along small sections of the wayleave, and we had to go further afield to collect our precious forest fruit supplies. The forestry compartment uphill from our boundary, which was clear-felled a decade or so ago, became a good source of brambles and wild raspberries as these plants established in the newly opened-up space.

In the last couple of autumns we have been able to pick many more blackberries in our own woodland. Openings that we have created in the woodland over the last few years have provided light and space for brambles, which are often one of the first plants to colonise clearings that we make in the wood. Brambles have started to form bushes along some of the track edges, where there is now enough light for them, as well as in the edge of the western compartment that was cleared a few years ago. Brambles seem to like colonising old brash heaps, with some heaps now completely covered by the plant. With various other areas opened up more recently (the track extension and a couple of small coupes), I expect to see more clumps of bramble appearing.

While brambles can tolerate the shaded environment of a woodland (although not the deep shade of a spruce plantation), in full sunlight they take advantage and grow rapidly, particularly where soils are good. In some woodlands on rich soils, brambles may grow aggressively and take over in clearings. However, if young trees establish through the bramble, they will eventually shade it and reduce bramble growth – such is the dynamic nature of a naturally functioning woodland. While I have heard that excessive levels of bramble may smother and reduce tree regeneration, the converse can also be true because brambles can act to protect young trees from browsing by deer. My own experience of the dynamics between bramble, deer and tree regeneration is limited because Comar Wood is still at the early stages of the process, but in various woodlands that I have worked or walked in trees have usually looked to be regenerating well alongside brambles.

The other factor in the relationship is that deer love eating bramble shoots. In Comar Wood I see evidence of deer browsing on bramble. This presumably limits bramble growth to a degree, but brambles are still establishing and expanding in the woodland. Deer browsing of young tree seedlings is also evident, so it will be interesting to see whether, as bramble expands, young trees will benefit from its protection against deer browsing.

In Comar Wood the expansion of brambles along parts of the track edges and in clearings is accompanied by other plants such as wild raspberry, ferns, foxgloves, heather, blaeberry and honeysuckle. Blackthorn and wild rose, which are other plants associated with scrubby woodland margins and clearings, are present in occasional patches in Comar Wood. Blackthorn was very suppressed beneath the spruce canopy in a couple of areas and is now making a comeback where it has been given more light. Wild rose bushes are also taking advantage of the increased light in two of the newly opened areas. As the woodland develops, I hope these plants, together with others, such as hawthorn, will help create greater diversity in open areas more widely.

Scrubby margins along track sides and in newly opened clearings add an extra level of complexity to the woodland, with many associated habitat benefits. The areas of planted spruce have a low level of complexity, being one type of tree, mostly the same size (single-species, even-aged), with very limited ground cover beneath the trees. By comparison, in the cleared areas these scrubby plants provide a different type of habitat for many small woodland creatures – producing flowers that attract insects, berries as food for birds and small mammals, spaces for spiders to do spidery things, and shelter for many of these animals. The surrounding spruce trees maintain the sheltered effects of woodland, creating glades with varying degrees of light and shade within which these scrubby habitats can develop.

Finding wild food in the forest is always a satisfying experience for me. Raspberries, blaeberries and brambles all grow abundantly where there is space and light for them, and spending time out in the woods picking their fruit is an antidote to our rushed, modern lives. It is good to think of the many other forest creatures that we share this fruit with and remind ourselves that we are part of the ecosystem too.