Foraging forumagers

Also spotted these are out early (as everything else has been too!) + will be collecting this weekend or next.

Damson gin beats sloe gin for me. But I haven't found any damsons near us (yet). There are some apricot trees though - apricot brandy this year, I think...

Oof! Apricot brandy!!

Found some sloes and a fig tree 5 mins from my house this morning. I've lived here for a year and a half, how have I not noticed them before?

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Daaammmn, I should have done this with the glut of apricots from next doors tree! I easily had a 'bag for life' full of the damn things. They come all at once and then last like 10 mins once off the tree!

Thought this might be a chequers but the leaves look wrong

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^ That looks like like it could possibly be a crabapple.
(useful source of pectin, when cored and cooked down,
to thicken other pectin-needy fruit pulps/juices).

^ Ditto - I thought crabapple

Thinking about it these are two trees I pass everyday on Old Kent Road and they did have blossom. Makes sense.

At it again...crabapple, plum and blackberry jelly in progress.

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Foraging friends.
Went for an epic walk on Saturday and found a great path full of sloes, blackberries and rose hips!
We collected 1.5kg of sloes :)

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I was sloe-seeking in Epping forest yesterday but all that we found were still firm and not ripe. I read you're meant to wait for the first frost to pick them... but can you pick them when they're firm? Will they ripen off the tree?

This has been a pretty good year for sloes,
they have a lot more flesh on them,
and,
some are edible from the tree as of now.
You can mimic the '1st frost' effect,
(of cell membrane damage leading to softening of the flesh rather than full ripening),
by putting a bagful in the freezer for a couple of days.

This isn't really foraging - more like scrumping - but on my allotment there is a neglected/abandoned plot with an apple tree laden with ... apples. The apples are ripe now and will soon become windfall so would it be wrong to 'try one' ?

If 'abandoned' means no-one is paying the subs for the plot,
then,
to my mind the apple tree becomes a community resource.

(You may care to thank the tree with a bit of judicious pruning/
application of mulch around the trunk).

We went for the riper ones but there were some firmer ones in there too.
I've never worried about waiting till the first frost to pick before and the gin has always tasted good :)

If no one tends the plot then get in there. No point in them going to waste.

Hard to tell whether abandoned because some people neglect their plots but continue to pay the annual rent and only make an effort when they get a letter from the council allotment officer. I could enquire I suppose.
There are loads of other fruit and veg that get 'wasted' every year (eg blackberries) and you have people picking stuff thats available on the outside (woods) while some good stuff is inaccessible inside the allotment fence.
I have done a bit for community resource - 4th crate of these went out yesterday. Previous batches have gone in hours :)

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Love a runner bean!
I know you are being considerate but screw whoever 'owns' the plot.
The waiting list is years for an allotment in some places, and even decades in others, and it does annoy me when I see people not using their plots.
Free the apples!

You are clearly on the 'Good Guy' side of the spectrum.
Go enjoy the apples.

Get 'em down thee neck!

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Early morning gatherings....

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Found another two damson trees today, in another neglected hedgerow, on Council open ground.
Some of the fruit is/was rotten on the bough, and some were beginning to dry out.

Anyone else noticed the difference in blackthorn;
older trees, often with lichen encrustations, the sloes appear in bunches,
younger bushes/trees/shoots, the sloes are spread out, maybe one every 8/9 inches along the branch?

Bought....yes bought...pineapples cheap at the end of the street market day in Oxford. Combined with crab apples and habanero chillies (not available in my local hedgerow) I'm on for chilli jam. Watch this space.

Outside our house, (and the adjacent, last house in the street) is the first bit of grass verge in a road approx 120 houses long. So what? Well, we are on the route taken by every dogwalker going to the 200yard distant municipal golf course. Every dog on it's happy, expectant way, leaves a little (liquid) memento, meaning the grass is a bit scrappy and typically dandelion infested.
Yesterday, I emerged from my garden to go damson collecting, and found two mature/retired (Koreans, at a guess), harvesting the young dandelion leaves.
Their English was as good as my Korean, so I had no way to implore them to give these leaves a really good wash before using them.