Luv this time of year, all the apples and plums and berries are starting. Made a load of blackberry Jam at the weekend. All for 1.60 for the sugar and a couple of hours picking. Drives the GF nuts though, she gets well bored after about 20 mins, I could forage all day. (and eating, must have eaten my bodyweight in plums LOL)

Got apples and plums ready for chutney next.

Lets have your recipes? and lets hear what else you can get

FREE FOOD!!!! Yey.

plums and apples for jam, chutney and crumble, tick.

did blackberries for blackberry whiskey this weekend, tick.

Sloes sussed, this years sloe gin planned.

damsons spotted, jam planned

chanterelles are carpeting the woods near me
and brambles – toast some pinhead oatmeal with a small amount of brown sugar. whip some cream, add some honey, whiskey and most of the oatmeal. mash some brambles with a splash of whisky and fold in to the cream. last of the oatmeal and a few of the jucier brambles on top.
mmmmmbramble cranachan

There are some fantastic “glut” recipes on here

Mirabell plum jam – done
Sloe gin – done
Damson jam – done
Stewed apple for crumbles etc over the winter months on the list…
Going fishing for bass to fill the freezer – on the list.
Liking BBSB’s blackberry recipe will give that a go.
All my recipes are off t’interweb and I just choose the easiest to do – when there is a glut of fruit I just want to get the processing part done and move onto the eating 😀

There are some fantastic “glut” recipes on here

I can confirm this. 🙂

I have about 8kg of blackberries in the freezer, ideal for morning smoothies, also have loads of apples which will become apple pies!

Slow gin a festering from last weekend and should be ready in a couple of months, mmmmm.
How do you guys prepare your berries? Do you bash or prick? It’s our first year and pricked all the berries but it took and absolute age!

bilberry jam, bilberrry vodka, blackberry crumble yesterday, wild raspberry and lemon verbena jam.

Was out blackberrying yesterday at St Catherines Point (most southerly part of the IOW) and it was a gorgeous afternoon. Berries weren’t as big as previous years, but plenty of them and its still early!

A lady at work gave me a quick tip the other day for sloes. When you’ve made your sloe gin, keep the sloes and put them in a bottle of sherry – apparently it makes a nice liquor(sp) type drink!

Lots of apples to peel tonight – probably make some apple chutney and stewed apple for pies/ crumbles etc. Made some nice beetroot chutney the other week – beetroot from our friends allotment.

I’ve got a ton of damsons ready to pick in my garden, but i don’t like jam or wine and i’m short of other ideas. I might try and make some fruit leather out of them – just blend them up and cook the pulp in thin sheets on the lowest oven temperature overnight. Any other suggestions?

Full list of annual foraging;-

Mushrooms nearly all year round
Elder flowers – cordial & ‘champagne’
Elder berries – pontact sauce
Crab apples – makes lovely spiced jelly
Most fruit we forage goes into jams, jellies, chutneys, alcohol infusions or wines;-
Sloes
Blackberries
Redberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Rowan berries
Haws
Rose hips
Plus;-
apples and pears
Sweet chestnuts
Samphire
Nettles – makes great pesto

The River Cottage ‘Hedgerow’, ‘Edible Seashore’ and ‘Mushrooms’ books are excellent carry anywhere for reference.

As I always say to people who give me funny looks, ‘You can’t knock free food!’

Going fishing for bass to fill the freezer – on the list.

🙂

Caught my first on holiday a week or so ago! Was only a schooly though. Be careful about minimum size limits, you mustnt go taking all the young ones.

Far easier to fill the freezer with mackeral i reckon.

Finbar: Damson muffins or Damson Gin or Damson Chutney

– 3 or 4 blackberry and apple/plum crumbles so far
– loads of blackberry muffins
– 2 bottles elderflower champagne (tastes shed loads better than normal champers)
– blackberry whiskey underway

So far, I’ve made blackberry & apple jam, blackberry & apple crumble, and blackberry & rhubarb pavlova. Lovely!

Thanks willyboy, i might make some chutney out of them.

Planning on producing 100L of cider this year as a small first run 🙂

sandwicheater, dont bash or prick the sloes, freeze them for a day or 2 first, then use them as normal, saves a lot of time! About to bottle 5 litres from last years harvest of sloes, then i will steep the gin soaked fruit in cider for a month!….Hic! 😀

Planning on producing 100L of cider this year as a small first run

Any chance of a taste after directing you to the free apples? 😉 😉

2 gallons of plum wine just about finished fermenting, ready for stopping and bottling this weekend.

2 gallons of elderberry and damson wine, still producing more hot air than TJ. Will rack them into the plum demijohns later on.

Loads of various plum purees already in the freezer. My neighbour has a 36 litre apple press, so going to sort out a pressurised barrel and make some perry and cider in a bit.

Blackberries starting to come out. Will give them another week or so before picking, hopefully get a bit more sun on them.

And 20+ pumpkins growing down the bottom of the garden. Some fro Jr to hack to bits, some for Mrs S to make pumpkin soup for the freezer and some for me to make pumpkin rum with. *hic*

hedge porn?

never done it before, but looking to get blackberries this year as a starting point.in Newcastle, so they’re not really out yet, I think in a week or two they should be good

must have eaten my bodyweight in plums LOL

In fairness though Emsz, you are very tiny so that’s not really an awful lot. 🙂

PP – I’m sure something could be arranged 🙂

7lb of Blackberries and Elderberries turned into 3gallons, approx 15/17 bottles of 13% wine.The other jar is just a generic Cabernet Sauvignon.

😛

Nice one CaptainCarbon, thanks to you I’ve now a 2 hour window in which I can go for a quick ride this week. 😉

Just been to the LBS (2wheels), and in the rear public car park, there a pear tree. Never noticed it before but now it’s bloated with ripe pears…. all 20 feet up… very annoying.

Last winter really gave everything a kick start round here (fruit tree wise), as for all the years I’ve parked there I’ve never noitced the tree bearing fruit before.

not sure whether its just a recent thing but have had reports of a few people saying that this and last years’ crop of plums have been ravaged by wasps 😯 .
anyone else experienced similar, and know whether its the norm or a new trend?

Done enough jam from 4lbs of blackberries over the weekend to last a year so thanks for the whisky and wine tips! It’s an epic year for them.
Picked a few chanterelles from my woods but am giving up on fungi this year as I can’t beat the deer or badgers to them. Tempted by a trip to some of these chanterelle-carpeted woods – I love the things!

Are all you guys “down south”, not seen much in the way of soft fruits ready for picking in Staffordshire while out walking. Actually spotted some sloes on a walk a couple of weekends ago but there didn’t seem to be many and they seemed small. But then I’ve never seen one before so I might have just over sized them in my imagination. I thought they’d be the size of damsons or slightly smaller. These I spotted were smaller than a mid size blackberry. Also spotted some bilburys reecntly but again these seemed small and not ready for picking either.

Speaker2animals: there seem to be 2 kinds of blackberry in Bristol – one variety has been ready for about 3 weeks, and is plump but not very sweet. The other variety is much smaller and nowhere near ripe yet.

As for bilberries, my parents were picking those (in Lancashire) back in July. They call them wimberries up there.

Magic mushrooms out yet?

They are at this end of the M4 8)

Had poached egg on home made bread with fried puffball Saturday morning. It may not have been magic mushroom but it’s a super tasty fungus.

Just mentioned to the kids today we’ll have to go and pick some Blackberries and Apples again for pies and crumbles. Maybe Thusrday afternoon if I’m done at work in good time.

hedge porn?

Harvests have been in decline since the early 1990s.

Probably something to do with global warming or the Tories.

Been on to the local hills and picked about 2kg worth of blackberries and few wild raspberries plus a good crop of different apples.

Made 3 Apple and Blackberry cakes and 4 Apple and Blackberry crumbles over the past week or 2.

Also frozen loads for future use. Will be heading up again over the next few days as more ripen.

Not bothered with the sloes this year. The red elderberries are just about ready so will pick some of them too to make syrup.

Magic mushrooms out yet?

found a couple of these which are rather more fun than liberties as long as you know what you are doing*

*By this I mean A: know how to correctly identify them and B: know how to correctly and safely work out a dose with a margin of error to allow for variance in the strength of the mushroom