Our Organic hedgerows are abundant at this time of year with Autumn fruits, including Sloes, Rose Hips, Blackberries and Crab Apples. We are also lucky to have some late apples in our heritage orchard including Sops of Wine and Bramley. We have been busy picking our share (leaving enough for the wildlife and livestock – yes, they love to munch on berries too!) and we’ve had a time scale for the blackberries – old folk lore suggests that they should be harvested before Michaelmas on the 29th September (or 10th October), or the devil turns them sour! Have a look at this interesting article on culinarylore.com for the background to this tale!
The blackberries go into jams and pies, the apples into chutney, apple sauce and pies also.
Bramley Apples
Sloes go into jam and a little tipple of gin (saved for the festive season)! Elderberries are used in jams and syrups, as are rose hips, (very good for colds – especially with our home made ice cream)!
From the same family as sloes, are our plums, damsons and cornish bullums – the latter you may not have heard of. All go into our delicious jams.
Tempted?
