I was hoping this year to pick my sloes in a thicket alongside the path near the Middlesex Filter beds which I pass if am taking my cycle ride southwards along the Lea Navigation. However someone picked those in August.
Down in the south it is not a good idea to leave sloes until the first frost as is advised (it saves pricking them with a needle to get the juices to flow). By the time that happens here the sloes have either fallen off or shrivelled up. August seems a bit early though - I pick mine in September.
So on my day off today I went to Chingford Plain on the edge of Epping Forest. The first clump of sloes bushes I came to had plenty of sloes to fill my soya dessert tub with, and plenty left over for someone else.
Picking fungi in Epping Forest is forbidden, mainly because people doing it commercially were taking too many. I am a little worried about whether I should be picking sloes. I don't think I will be making any difference to wildlife. Presumably something eats them - would the stones passing through the digestive tract of an animal be how the plants are distributed? But I think the vast majority of sloes not picked go to waste.
I would quite happily pick blackberries in the Forest, so have decided - for now - that I can do it.
I will be pricking the sloes this evening as I catch up on iplayer.
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