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Pippin & Gile Blog

Pippin & Gile Sustainability Commitment

Sustainability underpins everything we do How does sustainability play a role in your business? The key values of Pippin & Gile are sustainability, connection and community.So, sustainability is at the core of my business. Our courses strive to be as environmentally sustainable as practicable. We tread lightly on the Earth.…

Pippin & Gile named in UK’s Green Growth 100

Pippin & Gile based in South London has been selected as part of the Green Growth 100, an initiative launched by Small Business Britain in partnership with BT to spotlight small businesses successfully using sustainability as a core driver of growth.

Bushcraft entrepreneur named one of 2026’s leading UK female founders

Lizzy Maskey, founder of Pippin & Gile based in South London, has been recognised as one of the UK’s 100 most inspiring female entrepreneurs.

Lizzy, who founded her business in 2018, will be featured alongside leading female founders from across the country as part of Small Business Britain’s f:Entrepreneur #IAlso100 campaign, which celebrates the multi-achievements of women running businesses in the UK.

Wreath Making

Christmas can be quite a manic time, filled with ‘festive joy’ and obligations. I try within this mania to find a moment of calm, to go into the garden or for a walk and collect a few natural things that sing out to me. Then craft them into a wreath join me on this years journey.

“Tracking is Life”

Those moments when you’re trying and just not succeeding, when you’re on the trail of the animal and suddenly it vanishes. When you’re rubbing the sticks together for bow drill and not yet getting smoke, when your technique still has room for improvement. That is where Pippin & Gile comes in.

Spiced Crab Apple Jelly

This is a staple recipe in our family, if the cupboards are out of crab apple Jelly before September when the new batches are being made breakfasts just do not feel the same.
Delicious spread on warm toast, or served with cold or hot cuts of pork.
The high levels of pectin in the cores of the apples means there is no question of this not setting as long as you get it up to temperature.

Foraged Wine Infusions – Trouspinette

This blog starts to tackle the hugely broad subject of infusions, the addition of flavours into spirits or wine. The majority of these can be done simply and many are quick to make, even if the maturation time can take a little longer. For simplicity these may be divided into fruit or foliage infusions. The first essential piece of knowledge is that you must be certain that you are able to recognise your fruit and know that it is edible. If you are not sure follow that advice given to all new foragers and check and check again, using a number of different ID sources, go on a course and use the guides that are available as a backup.

May Time Woodland Foraging

There is so much to forage at this time of year. Many people see that the flush of the hedgerows is over, the flowers are out and many of the leaves we foraged in April are now tough stringy and bitter. So they pause on their foraging journey until the autumn. They are missing out on a wonderful range of forgeable delights.

Reflecting on the Year to Date

As the nights draw in at some of their fastest rates 3 minutes and 53 seconds shorter today in London. We take a moment to pause and look back on what we have achieved so far this year.

Out and about this Autumn

As the nights draw in at some of their fastest rates 3 minutes and 53 seconds shorter today in London. We take a moment to pause and share some top tips and ideas for how to make the most of this season.

Elderflower Fritters with a twist

These elderflower fritters made great light summer desert. The sparkles of the lemonade make the batter light and crispy and the sweetness and sharpness compliment the elderflowers wonderfully. The shape of the flower heads makes deep frying them a reasonably safe and easy doddle.

Wild Garlic and Jelly Ear Ramen 

A perfectly warming spring soup.
This recipe is ideal for those bright crisp spring days that hint at the warmth to come but still need a nice warming soup to follow a day outside.
This super quick, super simple, super warming soup highlights the best elements of the foraged foods it features.

Running Courses during COVID

COVID has affected all of us, and is making planing the future harder than ever.
Our Guarantee to you: We are being as flexible as we can. If you are affected by changing COVID restrictions after you book your course we will offer you a gift voucher valid for 24 months. Be that restrictions affecting you (being asked to self isolate), your area (it being illegal or advised against for you to travel), our staff (being asked to self isolate) or our sites (travel to our sites being made illegal or advised against).

Segmented Plank Basket

I’ve been making and selling plank basket kits at shows, and love the versatility of the plank basket.
This time though I wanted to go further. I wanted to create a basket with segments in it for my parents to use to store and sort their vegetable seeds in.

Setting up base camp – Part 2

Creating a lid lifter – After the kettles boiled its time to put the food on. Great you’ve got your pot hanger, but how do you take off the lid of the Dutch oven? Its way too hot to lift up. These super simple pot lifters will save the day, and can often be made from off cuts of your pot hanger.

Setting up Base Camp – Part 1

Creating a Pot Hanger – A cup of tea is an absolute must for any bushcraft camp, and therefore a pot hanger to hang the kettle on is essential.

My Truth about being my own boss

Become a freelancer they say, even better, become an entrepreneur. Instagram and social media in general gives us this great image of…

Charcoal – a very brief history, how to make it and its uses

Charcoal, we all know what it is right?
Charcoal comes in big (often red) bags of perfectly evenly formed briquettes from the garden centre or the petrol station, in the summer ideal for your BBQ. But what is it actually, when it’s not mass produced, shaped and treated to be easy to light?

Signs of Spring – Imbolc

The 2nd February was Imbolc half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

As my hedgewitch friends were watching the dawn and leaving offerings, I finally refound my motivation that had seemed to seep away along with our daylight hours in the last weeks of December and I set my year’s resolutions. I wrote some clear achievable targets and celebrated being able to walk outside after 5pm without a head torch by taking a dusk walk though the woods.

Coil Basket Making

Make your own beautiful coil basket using arch twigs and copper wire. This short video will show you all you need to know.

A Natural Reboot

It was such a crisp and beautiful morning, I just had to get outside. I woke to the sound of…

Conker Soap – Eco-friendly Laundry Detergent

In four simple steps we will show you how to produce, use and dispose of your conker soap granules.
Conkers as well as being great for the traditional game of conkers contain saponin, the chemical bit that makes soaps work.
Conkers can therefore be used as a really simple, eco friendly, sustainable soap alternative.

Running Courses during COVID

COVID has affected all of us, and is making planing the future harder than ever.
Our Guarantee to you: We are being as flexible as we can. If you are affected by changing COVID restrictions after you book your course we will offer you a gift voucher valid for 24 months. Be that restrictions affecting you (being asked to self isolate), your area (it being illegal or advised against for you to travel), our staff (being asked to self isolate) or our sites (travel to our sites being made illegal or advised against).

Elderflower Champagne

This recipe compared to the lower alcohol content one we published earlier in the week, is more demanding of your time, but the rewards are well worth the effort. Using a much higher volume of elderflowers and leaving them with access to the air for longer allows the volume of yeasts to multiply before bottling.

Elderflower Cordial

This quintessentially British summertime drink. Is fantastic with either cold water, sparking water or in a range of cocktails. Simple to make and delicious you’ll wonder why you’ve been buying it from the shops for so many years.

Greek Style Dolmades With Lime Leaves

Lime leaves are one of the unsung heroes of the foraging world. They are one of the few leaves that taste good, even when full grown straight off the tree, and make a great base for a foraged salad. In this recipe I’m replacing the traditional vine leaves from dolmades with lime leaves, and don’t tell the Greeks but I think it might even improve the dish!

Elderflower Champagne

If you have been put off making elderflower champagne due to hearing horror stories of exploding glass bottles then this is the recipe for you.
Chilled it is a perfect companion for curling up in a hammock with a good book in the sunshine.

Wild Garlic Butter

This easy to make and tasty flavoured butter works really well with a range of dishes, from garlic bread, garlic mushrooms and just topped onto a warm roll.

Nettle Pasta with Jack by the Hedge Pesto

I had always been lead to believe there was a dark art to the making of pasta, and this recipe convinced me otherwise. I’m sure that any Italian would scorn the green strands that this recipe creates. However I spent two years of my childhood eating only pasta for tea (apologies Mum), and this passed my muster.

Nettle Cordage – Lizzy Rambles Episode 6 – 10 May

In this article I’ll show you how to make your own natural cordage from nettles.
Cordage would have been incredibly important to our ancestors, Otzi the Ice Man – a frozen body from around 5000 years ago recently found having melted out of a retreating glacier in Italy has lime bark cordage on his person.

Plantain Hand Balm

This really simple hand balm is great at fixing chapped hands. It uses the properties of all the ingredients – Plantain, Almond Oil and Beeswax to produce its healing and skin recovering properties.

Nettle Champ

This simple recipe shows you how to make Nettle Champ, a mash with nettles and onions. This can easily be…

Gorse Cordial

A really tasty refreshing summer drink. It is remarkably easy to make and has a wonderful luminescent yellow colour.

Fire By Friction Demonstration

I was asked to do a fire by friction demonstration for the Greatest Online Agricultural Show in The BIG Skills Craft Tent and I’m delighted to be able to share this with you now.

Violet Syrup

We have a profusion of violets growing at our house, and this recipe is a perfect way to bottle that stunning violet colour. This lovely syrup is fantastic drizzled over ice cream, and also very tasty in a Cocktail with Gin and Bubbles.

Dandelion Honey

This wonderful alternative to honey is divine and like having your own little jar of sunshine. It’s the closest I’ve ever managed to come to putting this wonderful morning, with such a sky you never did see, in a box for me. It uses the flower petals, those bright little rays of sunshine that can brighten anyone’s mood. Unless you’re a gardener and they are in your veg bed – if you view your dandelions as a “shame of dandelions” maybe this recipe will make you see them in a brighter light?

Tracking on a stroll

I loved learning as a child and my thirst for knowledge has developed and grown deeper. Many of my friends at school would argue that knowing the name of the sepals, stigma and stamen, reduced their innate loveliness. I argued the opposite. The more we understand, the deeper we are able to look and the more we look, the more there is to know and cherish.

A brief escape to the woods

After a few too many days inside due to taking my minibus test and incessant rain. I headed outside yesterday…

Foraging Spring Greens

The snow drops are creating blankets of bright whites contrasting with the dark green grasses and muddy gaps on our roadside edges. Gardens and parks are dotted with the bright colours of crocuses. The birds have started their singing, from the robin who continues all winter, but now we are starting to hear the great tits, the song thrushes, the drilling of the greater spotted wood pecker and many more. All of this is telling us spring is on its way.

Bramble Basketry Part Three

Weaving the border
Once your basket is the desired height you’ll need to start thinking about the border.
1. Firstly go around each stake and kink it to the right.

Bramble Basket Weaving – Part Two

Now that is completed we are moving onto the walls of your basket.
The upright parts of a basket are called the stakes, we are going to place these in now.
Get the 15 lengths of thicker brambles, you’ll still need the tops to be flexible as you’ll be weaving your border with these later.

Bramble Basketry – Part One

In this three part guide we will take you through the steps needed to make a bramble basket. You will need a large bramble patch, with a lot of new growth on it.
Removing the thorns and leaves is quite easy, just run the bramble though your gloved hands and remove the sharp ends of the thorns and leaves this way.

Elderberry Syrup

Elderberries can be so prolific that the branches are hanging very low dripping with the dark red fruit. So it seems a shame not to utilise on this incredible fruit.

Crab Apple and Blackberry Butter

A fruit butter so called because it spreads like butter, looses all links to dairy butters at this point. Its a soft set mix of fruit puree and sugar, that goes wonderfully with a whole mix of options, on toast, stirred into greek yogurt, with roasted venison and with BBQ duck breast.

Foraging and the law

This article is meant as a brief overview of the main legislation that covers foraging in the UK.
Firstly, Walking on private land in England and Wales, without permission implicit or explicit is trespass, this isn’t a crime but is a civil offence, and you can be sued. Implicit permission is given in many areas, such as land owned by the Wildlife Trust, National Trust, local authorities etc. Scotland has a right to roam with a few exceptions.

A walk in the woods. A walk through time.

Walking through the ancient woodlands of the Wye Valley on the Welsh Borders. I was enjoying the towering beeches and the oaks, the natural regeneration of other species underneath them. The peregrines calling as they flew over head, the alarm calls of the smaller birds as they stired and listening to the tawny owls settle back down for the day.

Chutney Making – Apple and Onion Chutney

How to make a traditional apple & onion chutney

It’s that time of year again when the berries, and fruits are calling out for our attention.

Growing up on small holding in rural Surrey, I was raised producing these preserves year-on-year to store the garden’s produce. This recipe is adapted from a Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food recipe from WW2 and is commonly referred to by friends and family now as Chaldon Chutney after the village I grew up in.

In the Woods – January Tallow Candles

As the nights were getting longer, I was intrigued about natural ways to bring light to camp. I’d collected some clay from Pippin Wood and wanted to make use of this too. A plan for my next experiment was forming. I started experimenting with making candles. First step was to make thumb pots out of the clay and air-dry them.

Tales in the Tipi Returns to Talybont-on-Usk

Dates for the diary After the success of Tales in the Tipi last autumn we are returning to Gilestone Farm, Talybont-on-Usk for 2019. Tales in the Tipi will follow the seasons, marking the start of each new season. Each evening will have a children’s event and an adult event too. Welcoming in Spring on the

In the Woods – December

There is still foraging to be had, even as the nights draw ever closer to the shortest day. This week on a walk I found water mint, clover, dandelions, hairy bitter cress, jelly ear mushrooms, ground ivy and wood sorrel. The long evenings are a perfect time for finishing off projects and checking over stored

Winter – The season for blankets, warm fires…

and walks on bright, crisp, frosty mornings. Not everything has hibernated yet, and we don’t have to either. I recently saw hedgehog tracks in a woodland, and watched a king fisher on the banks of the River Usk. Winter can seem like a time to batten down the hatches, but the lack of leaves on