What Summer Brings: Foraging the High Season in Sussex

Season: Early Summer (June–July)

There is a particular generosity to the Sussex countryside in high summer. The lanes are tunnelled with growth, the meadows are loud with insects, and the hedgerows have shifted from the bright, urgent green of spring into something deeper and more settled. For the forager, summer is a time of abundance — and, because of that abundance, a time that demands discernment.

The plants available now are not the cleansers and movers of spring. Summer's harvest is richer, more complex: aromatic herbs that support the nervous system, anti-inflammatory medicines for the heat and overwork of long days, plants with a particular affinity for the skin as it opens and expresses under the summer sun.

St John's Wort — Hypericum perforatum

St John's Wort flowers at midsummer — around the feast of St John on the 24th of June — and this timing is not incidental. It is a solar plant in every sense: it grows in full sun on open ground, its flowers are a vivid yellow, and it has a long history of use in conditions where the light seems to have gone out of a person.

The fresh flowers and buds, when pinched between the fingers, release a deep red pigment — hypericin — that stains the skin crimson. This is the marker of a good, potent harvest. Make an infused oil by packing fresh flowers loosely into a jar, covering with olive oil, and leaving in a sunny window for four to six weeks until the oil runs deep red. This oil is exceptional for nerve pain, bruising, muscular aches, and the kind of tired, overworked body that summer can produce in its second half.

St John's Wort oil is one of the medicines I make every year without exception. It is a mainstay of the dispensary and one of the most quietly effective preparations in clinical use.

Meadowsweet — Filipendula ulmaria

Meadowsweet grows in damp meadows, riverbanks, and ditches — Sussex has no shortage of these habitats. The flowers are creamy white, deeply fragrant, with a scent that carries the particular sweetness of high summer. They appear from June through to August, and the harvest window is worth respecting: pick them at peak bloom, not before and not after.

Meadowsweet contains salicylates — the same family of compounds as aspirin, which was originally derived from this plant. It is anti-inflammatory, cooling, and has a particular affinity with the digestive tract. Unlike aspirin, which can irritate the stomach lining, meadowsweet has a long tradition of use in treating gastric inflammation and acid reflux. It is one of the paradoxes of herbal medicine that a plant containing aspirin-related compounds should also soothe the stomach — but plants are rarely simple in their action.

Dried flower heads make an excellent tea. Fresh flowers infused in cold water overnight produce a delicate, fragrant drink that is both medicinal and delicious on a hot day.

Yarrow — Achillea millefolium

Yarrow is everywhere in summer: roadsides, field edges, garden lawns, chalk downland. Its flat-topped white flower heads are a familiar sight, though many people would not know what they were looking at. This is worth rectifying.

Yarrow is one of our most versatile British herbs. It is diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory, astringent, and has a particular affinity for the blood and circulatory system. In acute illness, a hot yarrow tea promotes perspiration and helps the body work through a fever effectively. Topically, the fresh bruised leaf has long been applied to cuts and wounds — Achilles, in the myth, used it on his soldiers' injuries, which is where the Latin name originates.

For summer foraging, collect the flowering tops and dry them well. They hold their properties reliably and are worth storing in quantity for use through the autumn and winter months when fevers and infections are more frequent.

The Summer Dispensary

Summer is the season to make medicine for the year ahead. St John's Wort oil, elderflower vinegar, meadowsweet tincture, yarrow tea — these are preparations that will carry you through the colder months when the hedgerows are bare. Foraging in summer is not only about what you use now. It is about learning to think ahead, to work with the cycle of the year rather than against it.

The land does not waste its generosity. Neither should we.

Sarah Turton, Master Medicinal Herbalist & Iridologist | Sussex Herbal To work with me or join a seasonal foraging walk, visit sussexherbal.co.uk

Autumn's Quiet Medicine: What to Forage Before the Land Rests

Season: Autumn (September–October) — schedule for late August/early September

Autumn arrives in Sussex with a particular quality of light — golden, slanted, carrying a faint melancholy that is not unpleasant. The hedgerows, which have given so generously through spring and summer, are now busy with fruit. Berries, hips, haws, sloes. The harvest is heavy, the colours dramatic, and underneath this visible abundance there is something subtler happening: the plants are drawing their energy downward, back into the root.

This downward movement is the key to understanding autumn foraging. Above ground, we collect the fruits of the year's growth. Below ground — if we work carefully and sparingly — we begin to access a different kind of medicine.

Elder Berry — Sambucus nigra

The same elder that gave us its flowers in May now offers its berries in dense, dark clusters. The berries should be harvested after they have fully ripened to a deep, near-black purple — underripe berries are mildly toxic and should be avoided. They must also be cooked or processed before consumption; raw elderberries can cause nausea.

Elderberries are among the most well-researched of our traditional hedgerow medicines in the context of viral immunity. They are antiviral, rich in anthocyanins, and have a particular affinity with the upper respiratory tract. Made into a syrup with honey, ginger, and cloves, they are a mainstay of autumn and winter preparation — taken daily as a preventative, or at higher doses at the first sign of infection.

This is one of the easiest and most satisfying preparations to make at home, and one of the medicines I recommend most consistently to families as a starting point for building a home herbal dispensary.

Hawthorn Berries — Crataegus monogyna

Where the blossom in May was the herb of the heart's lightness — of the nervous system, of anxiety held gently — the berry in autumn is the herb of the heart's strength. Hawthorn berries are deeply cardiovascular: they improve coronary circulation, support heart muscle function, and have a tonic, long-term action that rewards sustained use over weeks and months rather than days.

The berries are astringent and floury in texture — not particularly pleasant to eat raw in quantity, but excellent in a decoction, a syrup, or a tincture. Collect them after the first frosts if possible, when the skin has softened slightly and the astringency has mellowed.

Hawthorn is a plant that asks for patience. Its medicine is slow and deep — which is, in my experience, exactly what the heart often needs.

Rosehips — Rosa canina

The wild rose — dog rose — produces some of the most vitamin-C-rich fruits available in the British hedgerow, and Sussex is full of them. The hips glow orange-red along every lane from September onwards, often remaining on the bush well into winter. They are almost impossible to miss.

Rosehip syrup was part of the British wartime pharmacopoeia for good reason — it was one of the few concentrated sources of vitamin C available when imported citrus was scarce. Made simply, it is excellent: sweet, tangy, deeply coloured, and genuinely medicinal. Strain carefully to remove the fine hairs inside the hip, which are irritating to the gut.

The hips can also be dried and used in tea blends through the winter months, or made into a jelly that pairs well with both cheese and game.

Root Time

From October onwards, the roots of many plants begin to consolidate their medicine — drawing energy downward as the aerial parts die back. This is when to consider harvesting burdock (Arctium lappa), dandelion root, and elecampane (Inula helenium) if you have access to them. These are deeper medicines, slower in action, and worthy of careful preparation and patient use.

Autumn root harvesting asks something of the forager that summer foraging does not: an understanding that the most potent medicine is sometimes the most hidden, and that working with it requires both knowledge and restraint.

The land is not bare in autumn. It is consolidating. There is a difference.

Sarah Turton, Master Medicinal Herbalist & Iridologist | Sussex Herbal To work with me or join an autumn foraging walk, visit sussexherbal.co.uk