Country-born baby boomers like me were brought up to forage. My mother was brambling – picking blackberries – when she went into labour with me.

We had field mushrooms plucked early in the morning from meadows fertilized by the local stables, wild garlic grew near the bluebell woods and there was a tree on a bridle path where we risked being trampled by horseriders as we picked crab apples for jelly.

Nettle tops and sorrel leaves were collected for soups and my grandmother made elderflower cordial and rowan berry jelly from favourite trees.

Even if you know what you collecting, there’s always danger when foraging for food. Mostly it’s a small price to pay, like getting scratched while picking blackberries or stung by a wasp collecting windfalls but it can be more serious. My foraging bible is Richard Mabey’s Food For Free, which covers more than 100 wild foods. This month it’s possible to gather wild raspberries and strawberries, hazelnuts and gooseberries and a plethora of mushrooms such as cep, chanterelle, field mushrooms, parasols and giant puff balls. It is plain foolish to pick mushrooms without a detailed guide book, however, because so many are poisonous. Peter Jordan’s Mushroom Foray Guide (tastymushroompartnership. co.uk) profiles 50 mushrooms on pocket-sized cards that tuck easily into the back pocket.

Different foods flourish in different regions. At the seaside, look out for winkles and mussels but check they aren’t near a sewage outlet and soak them in water for 24 hours. The more adventurous might experiment with seaweed. Mabey recommends sea kelp and laver, but when I can find it, I’ll settle for samphire.

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