Foraging forumagers

Currently at a wedding in an eco village in Tipperary. All the paths in the village are lined with fruit and nut trees, rhubarb, herbs and various berries. It's a foragers dream.

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Cheers. ☹️

We are having cherry plum clafoutis tonight. Mrs Ludd was doing some clearing of the overgrown wasteland that accompanies our rented place in Oxfordshire and decided to try some of the tempting fruit that was dropping from the trees. Then she identified them.

Have seen plenty of huge parasol shrooms and puffballs as well.

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Excellent. Gorge on 'em!

Can someone confirm these are Hawthorn berries?

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Another

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Yes they are- Mabey (Food For Free) says 'They make a moderate jelly, but being a dry fruit need long simmering with a few crab apples to bring out all the juices and provide the necessary pectin. Otherwise the jelly will be sticky or rubbery. It is a good accompaniment to cream cheese'.

Yeah I have that book. Luckily there are crab apples opposite

Went for a wander in the New Forest with my boy (age 3) - came back with these - he found the cep, I found the distinctly inferior (but still nice) brown birch boletes.

We weren't really foraging, this is just what we stumbled across - but I met a Russian woman who had found loads with her kids - all sorts of mushrooms, too.

Fried, ate, didn't die.

I'm on a roll.......

Crab apple, elderberry and blackberry....

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Inb4Schick,
a pedant might exclaim the berry of the hawthorn is the haw,
admittedly an unfortunate homophone.

Been a good year for them.
Reminds me a local municipal golf course has a specimen Cockspur thorn with much bigger haws. Must visit & collect a few.

Ooh, where you elders at the moment?

It's a sign from the foraging gods- go forth and simmer ! I've never tried it. Would be interested to know what it's like.

East Finchley behind flats in prospect ring. Not the best display. Bit raggedy.

Yes those are hawes. Makes an alright jelly but are a lot of work due to the seeds.

On my hunt for the Burgess Park mulberry I may have come across some sloes. Going to take a closer inspection tomorrow.

I was suprised by the amount of cherries in that park back along. Filled my lunchbox with them several times on the way home!

Massive glut of fruit over my way, but this year I haven't got enough time to do much. Huge numbers of blackberries, as usual, more sloes than I've ever seen, lots of rose hips, lots of haw berries (but I didn't know you could do anything with them). Elderberries are a bit thin on the ground but I was amazed to find white elderberries on one tree. I've never seen them before. I knew they were elder because I'd used that tree for the flowers in my elderflower wine.

It seems to have been a marvellous year for sloes, (in outer north west London).
Previously long term barren blackthorn have awoken to give some surprisingly fleshy fruit.

Yeah we have about 2kg sitting in my freezer waiting to go in one of my homebrews

I'll have a long lunch hour to look for checkers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus_torminalis

Sloes were out super early this year. Hopefully I can get some collected this weekend and get the gin going for winter :)

That's a very good idea...May have to hunt some myself.

I made Bramble whiskey a few years ago but it's just nowhere near as good as Sloe Gin.
problem is I can just never seem to make enough.
It makes a great little Christmas present as well.