Autumn's bounty.
08th September 2014
Autumn’s bounty.
What a fabulous spell of weather we are having in the Beacons at the moment.
The hedgerows are laden with fruit and nuts, the hazlenut crop this year is one of the best I can remember. The nut shells are just turning that light brown colour which means they will be ready for picking in a week or so. There is nothing like shelling a few fresh hazlenuts and just throwing them on top of your breakfast cereal, they are so full of flavour. When I was a youngster everybody used to go out picking hazlenuts in September but I hardly see anyone doing it now. I am afraid we have become too supermarket orientated and unless it’s in a plastic tray covered with cling film people don’t want it. Many young families these days just don’t even know about wild fruit and nuts they probably haven’t got the time and that’s fair enough I suppose.
I have a wild plum tree in my garden and it has to be fifty years old and every year it gives a wonderful crop of lovely ripe sweet plums. Again no good for the supermarkets because they are all different shapes and sizes and some have a small bare patch on their skin. Susan has been making gorgeous plum jam and we have been enjoying plum tarts and crumbles for the past week. They are equally as nice straight off the tree with a bloom of wild yeast still on them, just a quick swill under cold water and eaten straight away. I remember one year counting two thousand plums from this tree.
I also planted fruit trees in any available space, they cost as little as ten pounds each and this year I have pears hanging in bunches, cooking and eating apples weighing the branches down. The pears will be ripe later this month and the apples stored correctly can last right up until Xmas.
While we were out walking yesterday we commented on the bushes being laden with fruit such as blackberries, sloes and elderberries. I have a wild area at the bottom of my garden where my little mini nature reserve is and in the corner there is a lovely blackberry patch and today we have been picking trays of berries and as I write they are ready to go into an apple and blackberry crumble for tonight’s desert, accompanied by some vanilla ice cream.
Also in this little area are some blackthorn trees and they are laden with bunches of sloe berries. These sloes make a gorgeous sloe gin, I used to make it regularly, just pick a good crop of berries and wash and prick each berry a few times. Place these berries in a large vessel like a demi john and cover them with sugar and a few bottles of cheap gin, you don’t want good quality gin for this. You can also throw a few freshly cut almonds in for flavour. All you need to do then is mix it all up, stopper the vessel and leave it on a shelf in a cupboard, there is no fermentation to worry about so there can be no mess. Then once a week gently up end the vessel once or twice and repeat this procedure until Xmas, when the liquid will become a lovely rich red colour. Just filter it into bottles and enjoy on a winters evening with a good book or even in your hip flask on a winters walk, mmmm!
The elder is also a wonderful tree, its flowers in the spring make an absolutely superb cordial and I have made this many times it is so easy. The biggest prize, however, is its berries and as the year gets older the elder leaves are turning that beautiful pale colour, they are always the first to turn in autumn, now pick those superb wine coloured berries, these berries make the king of all fruit wines, it is my all-time favourite.
The old wine makers never picked fruit for wine making after rain because the wild yeast which is the bloom on these fruits would be washed away. Just rub your finger over a sloe berry and see the powder blue bloom come away to reveal the fruits true colour. These wild yeasts were essential before all the modern yeasts were available.
Soon all the hedges will be cut and shaped and all these wild foods will be gone, these fruits were an essential part of our birds autumn diet, one more thing gone in the modern era!
What a fabulous spell of weather we are having in the Beacons at the moment.
The hedgerows are laden with fruit and nuts, the hazlenut crop this year is one of the best I can remember. The nut shells are just turning that light brown colour which means they will be ready for picking in a week or so. There is nothing like shelling a few fresh hazlenuts and just throwing them on top of your breakfast cereal, they are so full of flavour. When I was a youngster everybody used to go out picking hazlenuts in September but I hardly see anyone doing it now. I am afraid we have become too supermarket orientated and unless it’s in a plastic tray covered with cling film people don’t want it. Many young families these days just don’t even know about wild fruit and nuts they probably haven’t got the time and that’s fair enough I suppose.
I have a wild plum tree in my garden and it has to be fifty years old and every year it gives a wonderful crop of lovely ripe sweet plums. Again no good for the supermarkets because they are all different shapes and sizes and some have a small bare patch on their skin. Susan has been making gorgeous plum jam and we have been enjoying plum tarts and crumbles for the past week. They are equally as nice straight off the tree with a bloom of wild yeast still on them, just a quick swill under cold water and eaten straight away. I remember one year counting two thousand plums from this tree.
I also planted fruit trees in any available space, they cost as little as ten pounds each and this year I have pears hanging in bunches, cooking and eating apples weighing the branches down. The pears will be ripe later this month and the apples stored correctly can last right up until Xmas.
While we were out walking yesterday we commented on the bushes being laden with fruit such as blackberries, sloes and elderberries. I have a wild area at the bottom of my garden where my little mini nature reserve is and in the corner there is a lovely blackberry patch and today we have been picking trays of berries and as I write they are ready to go into an apple and blackberry crumble for tonight’s desert, accompanied by some vanilla ice cream.
Also in this little area are some blackthorn trees and they are laden with bunches of sloe berries. These sloes make a gorgeous sloe gin, I used to make it regularly, just pick a good crop of berries and wash and prick each berry a few times. Place these berries in a large vessel like a demi john and cover them with sugar and a few bottles of cheap gin, you don’t want good quality gin for this. You can also throw a few freshly cut almonds in for flavour. All you need to do then is mix it all up, stopper the vessel and leave it on a shelf in a cupboard, there is no fermentation to worry about so there can be no mess. Then once a week gently up end the vessel once or twice and repeat this procedure until Xmas, when the liquid will become a lovely rich red colour. Just filter it into bottles and enjoy on a winters evening with a good book or even in your hip flask on a winters walk, mmmm!
The elder is also a wonderful tree, its flowers in the spring make an absolutely superb cordial and I have made this many times it is so easy. The biggest prize, however, is its berries and as the year gets older the elder leaves are turning that beautiful pale colour, they are always the first to turn in autumn, now pick those superb wine coloured berries, these berries make the king of all fruit wines, it is my all-time favourite.
The old wine makers never picked fruit for wine making after rain because the wild yeast which is the bloom on these fruits would be washed away. Just rub your finger over a sloe berry and see the powder blue bloom come away to reveal the fruits true colour. These wild yeasts were essential before all the modern yeasts were available.
Soon all the hedges will be cut and shaped and all these wild foods will be gone, these fruits were an essential part of our birds autumn diet, one more thing gone in the modern era!