Foraging in '23 and beyond...

Matty246

Thank-you Katiehound and Moonchild91..

goldfinches

I spent this afternoon foraging as cookery class was cancelled due to the new timetable not being ready yet. I visited three apple trees that are at one side of a college sports ground and picked up a few cookers and then walked round the edge of the cricket pitch and picked a few sloes and lots of blackberries. Here they are although you can't see the sloes under the blackberries. I've used all the blackberries to make this sorbet which is now in the freezer along with the ice-cream bowl for my stand mixer so I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.

goldfinches

Just popping back to say that the sorbet is absolutely delicious if a bit of a faff to make. Definitely recommended and I'll be making it again.

Glittering_M

Hi,
I've got a load of blackberries frozen for now, some are frozen in a lump which I'll defrost and make jam with, the others I've flash frozen so they are individually frozen for adding to porridge.

 I'm hoping to make a hedgerow jam, I usually just make apple and blackberry but I'd like to be a bit more adventurous. I've collected haws, apples and elderberries. No sloes sadly. We have quite a bit of rosehips about but I've read conflicting advice about collecting them, mainly around whether or not to wait until the frost has been but I feel they'll all have gone or over by then. Generally the agreement is wait to they are soft but they are still hard here. Any tips? Does freezing them make them sufficiently soft?

I'd like to add the rosehip to the jam but also to make a rosehip syrup.

I did make an elderberry syrup which is quite nice but is taking up too much fridge space. It's just spices, elderberries, sugar and water so I'm not sure if they can stay in the cupboard when unopened?

Also, please be careful what you forage. We collected what we thought was Elderberry as we'd been told there was a tree there and it turned out to be Dogwood we'd been collecting, with the Elder nearby. On Android phones (likely Apple too but can't confirm), you can take photos of something and it will search the internet for similar things to give you suggestions of what it could be. This is how I identified the Dog Wood as I had a gut feeling it wasn't right. Obviously it isn't 100% accurate and please do your own research too. I for example used it to identify a mushroom and then I did my own research before eating it (there are no poisonous lookalikes). You do need to be connected to the internet for that to work. 

I read somewhere you can harvest beech nuts. Does anyone have experience of this? What do you do with it? Is it worth it?

kayannie

Glittering_M said:

Hi,
I've got a load of blackberries frozen for now, some are frozen in a lump which I'll defrost and make jam with, the others I've flash frozen so they are individually frozen for adding to porridge.

 I'm hoping to make a hedgerow jam, I usually just make apple and blackberry but I'd like to be a bit more adventurous. I've collected haws, apples and elderberries. No sloes sadly. We have quite a bit of rosehips about but I've read conflicting advice about collecting them, mainly around whether or not to wait until the frost has been but I feel they'll all have gone or over by then. Generally the agreement is wait to they are soft but they are still hard here. Any tips? Does freezing them make them sufficiently soft?

I'd like to add the rosehip to the jam but also to make a rosehip syrup.

I did make an elderberry syrup which is quite nice but is taking up too much fridge space. It's just spices, elderberries, sugar and water so I'm not sure if they can stay in the cupboard when unopened?

Also, please be careful what you forage. We collected what we thought was Elderberry as we'd been told there was a tree there and it turned out to be Dogwood we'd been collecting, with the Elder nearby. On Android phones (likely Apple too but can't confirm), you can take photos of something and it will search the internet for similar things to give you suggestions of what it could be. This is how I identified the Dog Wood as I had a gut feeling it wasn't right. Obviously it isn't 100% accurate and please do your own research too. I for example used it to identify a mushroom and then I did my own research before eating it (there are no poisonous lookalikes). You do need to be connected to the internet for that to work. 

I read somewhere you can harvest beech nuts. Does anyone have experience of this? What do you do with it? Is it worth it?

Elder has a distinctive, slightly unpleasant, smell if you rub the leaves between your fingers. A foolproof way (I think) of telling if it's an elder or something else, if you're unsure.

I've recently moved to the Welsh coast from the middle of the countryside on the English side of the Welsh border. At this time of year I would be finding fungi such as parasol mushrooms & puffballs. I've not seen any of those around here. Having grown up with fruit orchards on the doorstep, these are absent too. Just plenty of blackberries which is something, and I was picking samphire off the salt marshes until the end of August, when it's past it's best.
KA

Glittering_M

Anyone got any tips for getting the seeds out of Haws? I resorted to squishing but it was a real faff. It is a shame as there are so many hawthorne trees about full of berries but if it is going to be such a pain to remove then, I can see why they aren't utilised.


Also any tips for softening rose hips? I froze them and then boiled them in jam but they are really hard still.

thriftwizard

I haven't tried haws, though my friend makes Haw Sin sauce for her stir-fries, and the only time I used rosehips was in rosehip wine - which was delightful, the only wine I've made that I could call an unqualified success - but I have no idea how hard or otherwise the hips themselves ended up!

I had a bit of a tragedy last week; picked a tub of raspberries at the allotment & augmented them with blackberries, intending to do a "red & black" jam, using the last of the crab apple fluid for pectin. But when I opened the tub the next day, there were lots of little white crawlers... they'd been in the fridge overnight. The little beasties must have come in on the blackberries; I've been keeping the raspberries in the fridge for 4 or 5 days without losing any. (Suffice to say, the chickens were very pleased to see both berries & beasties.) Sadly these blackberries were from the end of our own garden, from a "thornless" variety which, to be honest, taste quite insipid & turn to mouldy mush at the mere sight of a raincloud. Give me proper wild blackberries any day, thorns & all!

Katiehound

Haven't tried this- but you might want to try:
https://tinandthyme.uk/2020/08/hedgerow-jelly/

https://www.farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk/how-to-make-hedgerow-vodka/

or some ideas here:
https://www.thefield.co.uk/food/7-best-recipes-hedgerow-harvest-37371

beech nuts (a lot of bother for maybe not a lot!!)
https://www.wildfoodie.co.uk/post/beech-tree-and-beechnuts

or beech nut butter:
https://orchardsnearme.com/2019/10/24/wild-recipe-beech-nut-butter/

Floss

Glittering_M said:

Also any tips for softening rose hips? I froze them and then boiled them in jam but they are really hard still.

I whizz rosehips in my blender before making jelly.

Glittering_M

Thanks @Floss , I'll give that a go next time. I'd like to make Syrup too so imagine the hardness of them doesn't really matter.

Haw sin sauce sounds interesting, I'll have a research.