[Closed] Nature's autumn bounty.

Heading out tomorrow to check my apple foraging spot and will be picking brambles too.

There's an excellent apple tree by the village train station which no one else seems to have noticed! Ditto the blackberries. Had a an excellent forage for berries in the lanes around my parents yesterday. I feel a crumble coming up!

Been an awesome year for free fruit. Our freezer is jammed full of bilberries, red currants, black currants, blackberries and raspberries. Damsons aren't quite ready for picking yet

Oh and we've juiced enough apples to make 12 large bottles of juice. I'd have given cider a go, but I'm not a fan!

Oooh pressed apples never thought of that.

I'm amazed there wasn't anybody along that particular little lane after blackberries, there's almost no traffic to worry about, and stacks of berries along the hedges either side. I'm not much into cooking or baking, so I was alfresco dining while I was out walking. Most enjoyable it was. 😀

Our brambles were really early this year, just about been and gone. Picked about 1.5kg without venturing out of the garden.

New favourite recipe for using them up [url= http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12971/blackberry-and-coconut-squares ]Blackberry and Coconut Squares[/url]

Made plum chutney, plum jam, lamb and plum curry the other week and still had some left over.

[url= https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3851/14848430839_46d1681735.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3851/14848430839_46d1681735.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

Picked loads of blackberries this year. People are lazy though, 10 yards off my commute is the most amazing hedge full of them. Been coming home scratched and purple lipped for a fortnight.

Yeah they've been early this year but still loads left.

Had a superb crumble this evening (cooked by the fair Dr North) made with last weekend's foraged blackberries. TBH, while the fruits are smaller this year, there were still plenty of them. No idea why loads of people aren't out there picking them!

I've squirrelled away a dozen jars of blackberry jelly and 20 jars of spicy plum chutney plus got a couple of batches of sloe gin on the go. Been a bumper year, though I've yet to go out fungi foraging (despite spotting a couple of large ceps from the bike today).

Same here in Wexford,no one seems to pick the hedgerows,weve had crab apples,raspberries,wild strawberries,blackberries,now waiting on slows,follow first frost rule.
Plus home from in laws with tesco carrier full of really fizzy apples,ideal for crumbles.
3 gallon hedgerow wine brewing too
Bounty all around >

Damson gin just been turned.
Eating my own bodywewight in Parasol mushrooms at the moment.
Homemade ratatouille for tea.
Need to go and remind my neighbour we're making perry again this year!
I love living round here 🙂

I love a good handful of blackberries too on a ride, but be careful to check each one carefully. This was over the chase last Sunday.
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MM - I'm just slightly north of you and spent yesterday picking blackberries with the Kids... think it'll be another week before they are all ready around here.

Also found a Cobb tree, used to love them as a kid.

We've had quite a bumper year on the Farm for Plums/Blackberrys, cooking Apples but the eating Apples have turned out very hard and sour..

jekkyl. Added protein too 😛

Waiting for sloes too. Wife made sloe vodka, sloe whiskey and sloe gin last year. Lovely.

So many apples and victoria plums this year, but no pears.
Cherry tree has never produced anything, so may substitute a perry pear instead.

I have a Cobb nut tree as well as a hazelnut - both are excellent. As are the pears, the late plums and the many varieties of apple. I'm pretty lucky at this time of year TBH and always eat straight from the tree, juices dribbling down my face, until completely full. Always a nice feeling when it's fruit and even better when it's free.

Weirdly, some trees struggled to produce any fruit whatsoever this year. Must have been the early frost just when it was blossoming or something.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely can fulls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

We've got about 30lbs of pears that don't taste very good.

Rock an roll

Bramble Whisky. That is all.

Scapegoat - what's the recipe?

Just picked a couple of kilos of brambles. Crumble is a no brainer but I fancy a Christmas tipple with them as well.

Loads eaten here already, lots more to come still...
[url= https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3917/15163122481_c8b5989365_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3917/15163122481_c8b5989365_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/p6UY3e ]A day out in the Trossachs[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/88555557@N00/ ]matt_outandabout[/url], on Flickr

OD'd on Apple and bramble crumble 😳
All Saturday's are now made into bramble and elderberry jam - om nom nommage. THE best jam recipe ever.

Smudger - fill a 1 litre kilner with brambles, not too packed in, top with about 3 or 4 tablespoons of sugar, then gently pour the whisky through the sugar. Once filled, lid on and in a dark cupboard til Christmas. Give it a shake once a week.

Lovely jubbly.

Smudger sorry I didn't reply earlier, but this thread reminded me I had to go and sort out last year's hedge fruit tipples and get the bottles consolidated for this year. So, I've been straining and re bottling bramble Whisky ( not much left, but great after twelve months ...) apple and blackberry gin ( not my favourite, but very Christmassy) damson gin, damson vodka with two different sugar levels, and three different sloe gins. I had to taste them all you'll understand and I've only just regained the ability to type. The best answer is to follow Nobeer's recipe, but you can ghetto it by buying a 70cl bottle of Aldis blended scotch for just over 11 quid, and dividing it between its own bottle and an empty one, each half filled with brambles and sugar. Damson Gin is absolutely awesome, by far my favourite of last years bounty. Freeze the damsons overnight and thaw them so the skin splits, stuff them in the bottle and add a little bit of sugar. Leave to steep for at least six weeks inverting the bottle daily for a few days, add sugar syrup made with just enough hot water to dissolve the sugar a bit at a time to achieve your sweetnesslevel, then leave in the dark for the remainder of the time. If it makes it to Christmas its great,but Strain and leave it to mature for as long as you can. I have a bottle left over from last year that is just fantastic.