Free Food in September

TravellingAbuela

We usually pick sloes in October, around the first frosts. If you can't wait for the frost (brrr!) then freezing them is just as good. This month I shall be picking blackberries, elderberries and rowanberries. Also apples and pears when I find them growing wild. Last month it was bilberries from the moors. My cupboards are packed with home-made jams, chutneys and jellies and my spare freezer chocobloc with tubs of berries, fruit pies, crumble etc. Foraging is my hobby in the summer months! Maybe I should have a go at winemaking? So far Sloe Gin has been my limit!

SwissToni_2

Be very careful when picking wild mushrooms unless you know exactly what you're picking, but one that is easy to spot and has no poisonous mimics are the giant puffball. These are white large footballs that are solid when fresh and can be sliced like bread and cooked like steaks, always found in nettle patches. Also when picking mushrooms always leave a few so they can spore, otherwise the patch will eventually die out from over picking and there won't be any next season. Nothing beats wild mushrooms for taste.

Barneysmom

sofababe wrote: »

On my way to work last week I walked past a hedge (round someone's front garden) absolutely bursting with what looked like blueberries. But people don't grow blueberries in their front hedges, do they? Any idea what they might be? I'm a country girl but never seen this before

Could it be juniper, some people use it a hedging though it can grow quite tall.

BLT_2

The local garden allotment is a great source of free food, you just have to make sure you go down late at night and wear a balaclava so you aren't recognised

Pickle_99_uk

Been out picking blackberries, plums and apples in the park near us. Made pies and crumbles. Yum!

lucylema

When we moved we gained an apple tree in the garden. I didn't think it had much fruit until i picked some yesterday. I have more apples than i know what do do with and there are still loady on the tree!

I don't know where to find anything else. I know where there are some blackberries but thats about it. no idea where to find sloes or what they look like.

sofababe

sofababe wrote: »

On my way to work last week I walked past a hedge (round someone's front garden) absolutely bursting with what looked like blueberries. But people don't grow blueberries in their front hedges, do they? Any idea what they might be? I'm a country girl but never seen this before

They could well be sloes, having looked at a pic. I don't know why but I've always thought sloes were bigger, like damsons:o Thats what happens growing up in an alcohol free family!! No sloe gin was made in our house:(

toni_

went forgaging yesterday and collecting a huge tin of blackberries which ive washed and are now in the freezer, my mums got a lovely plum tree we took some plums from and we now have a blackberry and plum crumble cooking inn the oven for dinner. We spotted plenty of sloes growing but its too early to pick them yet really. Ive got a cooking apple tree in my garden and the apples are now starting to get big, going to look for damsons after dinner and try and find a wild apple tree.

Enterprise_1701C

I cringed when I saw "washed and are now in the freezer" - I never wash soft fruit before freezing it because it is rather hard to get it totally dry, though it sounds from your post as if that is what you always do?

jap200

Don't forget elderberries - assuming that you didn't pick all the flowers for cordial. I have made fantastic elderberry jelly before (jam without bits in) but it's a bit fiddly and I notice having been googling around that there are some recipes for elderberry and apple jam that look a bit less fiddly. If you can get hold of free apples as well and some empty jars, then you can have lots of pots of jam/jelly just for the price of the sugar.