Foraging forumagers

I went back and it’s gone, so my guess is it was ok to eat, I’ll be quicker next time. Good tip on try a little bit and wait. I may try it on the MiL first ;)

Ye of little faith:D

My wife uses me. She lets me eat what I pick and waits a day, if I'm still alive she'll try some. (Both women, just FYI)

Lots of blackberries in Burgess Park. No sloes this year though.

Came across this massive cranberry bush today, suggestions other than jam?

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Cranberries aren’t bushes, they’re a low growing vine. That looks like Guelder rose.

We've been getting tonnes from the alley near us. The pic above was just the start.

Now I wish I hadn't eaten so many... Joking, thanks for the heads up.

I was fooled by the Picturethis app stating how people make jam from the above 'European Cranberry Bush (Guelder Rose)'. Got home and read the small print that these are indeed unrelated to the cranberry fruit lol.

Anybody else noticing a reduced amount of fruit this year?

One stretch of road I frequently cycle along had a 'Hedgerow mix' planted 40-odd years ago. The mix included some myrobalan, or small rounded plum. The colours vary from a typical plum deep purpley red to a vibrant yellow. This year the crop is less than a 1/3 of last year, based not upon what I could gather from the grass verge, or from the trees themselves, (others could also be foraging here), but from the amount of fruit on the road.

A couple of clumps of these former fruit bearing trees appear to be in good health, (fully leaved, no sign of infections on the leaves), but zero fruit, as if they are having a year off.

No myrobalan chutney this year.

My first impression this year was that there was more to harvest than last. The berries have been smaller, but more plentiful. One of the local apple trees does have a weird issue in that only one branch started any fruit at all, while the tree adjacent to it is overloaded all over.

Elderflower earlier in the year was pretty good too.

Not foraging related but I saw my dad today and he commented that his espalier pear, which normally gives him about 50-70 pears has about 4 on it this year.

My eater apple tree had very little fruit most of which dropped in the last week. Cooker adjacent is looking fine

Tangentially related but I’m happy to report our garden has had much more (at least visible) insect life this year.

Many less apples, pears and plums on both mine and my mum's trees this year but last year was a bumper crop year and they usually alternate years. Lots of cobnuts though and so far the squirrels haven't got them all...

Can’t comment on the overall amount of fruit but I can say west of London we’ve had good garden strawberry crop and average raspberries. Out in the wild there’s been stacks of plums locally, usual huge numbers of blackberries but it’s a good area for them, looks like usual amount of elderberries but can’t comment yet what they’re like. Bit too early for the mulberries in Staines and I have to admit I haven’t been down to Bushy House to check the apples on Newton’s apple tree or the other trees. The wild apple trees down the side of the Staines bypass bit of the A308 seemed to have plenty of fruit but they’re not the best eaters. Don’t know who’s planted all the potatoes, pumpkins, beans and rhubarb down by the river at Staines Bridge but it all looks like it’s growing well!

How do people feel about picking fruit thats on/near busy roads? Give them a wide berth? Found a plum tree on a rat run that I'd like to try and pick but don't really know if I should due to the proximity to the road.

Also, how do you know when one can pick damsons? Found a few more trees, fruits are still very hard.

Thanks!

I avoid stuff right next to busy roads. I once picked sloes from within 200m of the M60 on the prevailing "downwind" side and wondered shit what they might have absorbed so haven't used that spot again. I have no evidence to back my reasoning up though.

Damsons, and other unimproved fruits, medlar being the most obvious example, tend to take the whole Summer, and Autumn, to fully ripen.
Given the rain and lower temperatures of July, many fruit are behind the schedule indicated by our scorchio June.
The figs on our tree stalled through July, and despite being upto size by the end of June, have taken this week's temperatures to ripen to eatability.
tldr: Damsons; seldom ripe until mid September.

Thanks!

had some lovely green figs last weekend from a friend of a friends place on the south coast and just scrumped a black fig from the neighbours garden, all very tasty and parp! inducing

also been spotting a few damsons, cherry plums and plums in recent rides, nice amuse bouches for a ride, cleanses the palette and provides a little energy

Spotted a rogue tomato plant when out with the kids today.

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Picked loads of blackberries at the wetlands centre today. Still a severe lack of sloes everywhere I go.

walnuts.jpg

The flesh of unripe walnuts can be used to dye the skin an orangey tan colour. Apparently Sir Richard Francis Burton used this as an element of his many disguises when he infiltrated the Hajj in order to enter Mecca - although I have no doubt that much of what is told about the explorer is fiction.

Is that tomato next to a drainpipe, or a soil pipe? It's common for tomatoes to sprout up all over sewage works, as the seeds need to ferment before germination and the gut helps this - and we eat an awful lot of tomatoes!

I've got a rogue tomato growing in the gravel in my garden