Should I be picking sloes in the Forest?

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.

Slow picking sloes for sloe gin

After a visit to Waltham Abbey with friends for King Harold Day I was dropped off at Chingford Plain so  could go looking for sloes.

Quite a bit of walking and pressing into sloe bushes to get enough berries as they were scattered.

I did wonder if someone had been before me and these were their left overs, but I think there would be more high up, out of reach, if that had happened. With all the programmes, books and articles it seems strange to think that only I have wanted to pick sloes at such a popular walking spot.

Pricking them now to use my neighbour's recipe: one part sugar, two parts fruit, three parts alcohol.

Two bushes full of crab apples, but I don't like crab apple jelly.

You don't have to be in the countryside to enjoy a spring day

What a wonderful spring day!

I went for my cycle ride this morning, not wearing a cycle jacket for the first time this year. The tow path was busier than usual with walkers, joggers and cyclists.

I was very pleased to see all this blackthorn blossom, if this turns to fruit won't have to go to Epping Forest for my sloe gin this year!

I saw a male brimstone butterfly fluttering around this blackthorn.

Picked some rhubarb and had a small rhubarb crumble which was very nice. Even better as last year didn't have any due to the cold spring, and the year before the spring was so dry my one and only crumble was from thin, non juicy sticks of rhubarb.

I also picked some goose grass (cleavers) and made some tea. Virtually colourless and virtually tasteless, but supposed to be a good tonic!

slow picking of sloes for gin

According to the books, if you wait till after the first frosts to pick your sloes for gin you don't have to prick each sloe berry as the frost has softened the skins. The one time I waited, I found the berries had all dropped from the bushes.

So today, a bright, sunny September Sunday, I went to Epping Forest to get sloes for sloe gin, wondering what I would find after our rather odd Spring. Found a great long hedge of sloe bushes but very few berries - though those I did find were a good size. So I picked what I could find, and reach. Then came a few bushes that had lots of berries on, so finished filling my soya dessert tub with no problem.

I walked a little further to check the sloe bushes where I used to pick my sloes, to find separate bushes had grown and spread into a thicket - with not a single sloe.

I have just pricked all the berries and put into a jar with sugar and gin. Official quantities are 450 g (1 lb) sloes, 100g (4oz/1/2 cup) sugar. Put together in a jar, shake every day until sugar has all dissolved and then leave for 3 months. Pour off sloes into bottle. Use the gin-soaked sloes to make sloe brandy (sloes, brandy and more sugar).


I've now tried instructions from Pete F to get paragraphs in my post - fingers crossed!