September is one of my favourite months. Roads are lined with trees of yellow, orange and rust leaves waiting to fall on the next windy day. A walk in a broadleaf wood on one such day will have this riot of colour falling around you like confetti. The ground will be full of fallen leaves which crunch under your feet. You can bring out your inner child by kicking piles of them as if you were playing in the Premier League.

The same woods are full of fungi, particularly at this time of year. Every autumn, I join a mushroom foraging walk with an expert. Despite these exhibitions, I’m still reluctant to pick them myself.

There are some easily recognisable ones like chanterelles or morels that I’m happy to harvest but others are just too confusing. Among the ways the experts say to identify the various fungi are by smelling, looking at the gills, and breaking a piece to see if it changes colour.

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But ringing in my ears is a quote from the wonderful Éanna Ní Lamhna: “You can eat any mushroom once.” She also advised that if you’re picking unknown mushrooms to pick two. Eat one but leave the other on the mantlepiece so they are able to identify what killed you when they find your body!

Thankfully, there are plenty of other wild foods that are safe to eat. Most people are familiar with blackberries and have spent time as a child bringing home a can full held in hands stained purple.

I love picking a handful warmed by the morning sun. If I’m organised enough I’ll have soaked some Irish oats in milk or kefir overnight, to which I’ll add the berries, a chopped-up apple from the orchard and yogurt. Now that’s a full Irish breakfast.

When I’m picking blackberries my dog, Willow, is munching on the lower berries.

I’m happy to leave these to her as I always pick above the P-line. What’s the P-line? Well think about your average dog and the height of his hind leg and pick above that.

The fabulous orangy red berries of the rowan or mountain ash are edible but believe me you don’t want to snack on them. Raw, we find them extremely bitter and astringent. Birds, particularly thrushes and blackbirds love them.

I’m happy to leave these to her as I always pick above the P-line. What’s the P-line? Well think about your average dog and the height of his hind leg and pick above that

In fact, I know the rowan berries are ripe when I see the tree outside my window shaking with birds filling their beaks. Rowan berries are best picked after frost but in our mild climate here in the west, the birds have the tree stripped by then. I pick as soon as they are ripe and throw them in the freezer for a few weeks. This mimics the effect of frost. They can then be soaked in vodka to make schnapps.

They can also be boiled and strained to make a jelly or they can be added to a mixed berry jelly. Other seasonal berries to add to that jelly include hips, haws and elderberries.

I love the mild days of September and the cooler evenings. The midges are gone so it’s lovely to get a big jumper and sit outside watching the sunset, cuppa in hand. I’m sad to see the swallows leave while welcoming the arrival of whooper swans.

I’m not a big fan of spiders and they are busy trying to find a winter home in my home this month. Some of them are huge.

Growth in the garden has slowed – though thankfully there is still plenty to harvest. Tomatoes will continue to ripen though slower, and there’s lots of beans, peas and squash to grace my dinner plate. It’s also the time of year I save the seeds of plants that have done particularly well.

There is great satisfaction in sowing seeds in spring that you saved the previous autumn knowing the plants are ones you enjoy eating and will do well in your area.

September is a time to slow down after the travelling and socialising of summer months. It’s the month the jumper makes an appearance and the evenings start to draw in.

As the bible says for everything there is a season, a time for every activity.