First Foraging

“Foraging” seems to have become a bit of an in thing lately but we’ve been meaning to go out picking bits & bobs for a while, the problem is just where to start ?

As part of my running I’m often up and down local footpaths and bridleways but looking for berries & bushes is one thing I’m not doing. However I could at least suggest a few local paths and trails to try and we would never have guessed how successful they’d be. Here’s what we found…

Sloes

It took a while to get our eye in to spot these things and the first finds were little unripe bullets but it soon became easy to spot riper, lighter coloured ones with a slight matt/dull sheen. Traditionally it seems a bit early for sloes and you’re meant to wait until after the first frost, I suspect many of these would be lost to the birds or on the ground by then!

Blackberries

Given the earliness of the sloes and other berries we’d expected blackberries to be past their best but really it was a mixed bunch with many that looked ripe still being pretty solid and not coming off too easily. Quite intensive and time consuming to get even a relatively small looking amount.

Crab Apples [See header image!]

We were on the look out for these and didn’t really expect to find any but once you spot one there were often plenty more somewhere attached to the same tree. A satisfyingly weighty load to go in the bag gathered from windfalls and off the tree relatively quickly and easily.

Elderberries [See header image!]

We used to have an elder in the back garden which was surprisingly prolific and they make themselves pretty obvious at this time of year with massive dark clusters of tiny berries. Some of the ones we collected I had spotted on a recent run without even being on the lookout. From wines to cordial to various jams and jellies these seem to have been used for all sorts over the years.

Hazelnuts

Totally unexpected by us but once you were looking these seemed to be everywhere. Not sure they’re really ready quite yet or how they’ll compare to the uniformly large round nuts you buy in the supermarket but I’m sure we’ll be back to check them out a little later in the year.

Now I still run the same paths but I can no longer run in a straight line for spotting goodies along the way!

And finally you’ll see plenty of other interesting things whilst out & about…