September 2nd – This year, as usual, I’m charged with foraging fruits and other goodies for the family winemaker, and precious jewels indeed are the sloes.
Thankfully on my ride out to The Roaches, I found a plentiful crop I’m not going to give the location of!
Thes dark red berries with the blue sheen, very similar in appearance to damsons make a lovely warming gin and are much prized.
A great find!
August 21st – It was a grey, damp Friday afternoon, and it felt more like October than August, and after a few grey, wet days I noticed the little meadow near the new pond at Clayhanger had lost all of it’s summer colour suddenly, like switching off a light.
All was not lost, though, as there are still wildflowers nearby – toadflax and honeysuckle are still showing well, and damsons and apples are adding autumn colour. Even a confused lupin was bright in the gloom.
Autumn can wait just a little while, can’t it?
September 3rd – I’d been to Redditch for a meeting. I don’t go there much these days, and it made a nice change, to be honest. Nicer still was an early finish, and riding back from Sutton, I chose to ride up through Little Aston Forge, a route I also hadn’t ridden for ages.
I must have passed those lovely cottages on the hairpin loads of times over the years, yet I’ve never noticed the pear and plum trees in the hedgerow opposite. The plums – they seemed a bit large to be true damsons – were well over now, but it looked like there had been a decent crop.
The pears had suffered from pests, and some were frost damaged, but the ones that survived were large and beautiful.
I really don’t know why I’ve failed to notice these before…
September 28th – I haven’t seen any sloes this year. There are usually some growing in the hedgerows around Engine Lane in Brownhills, near the old Carver building, but they seem barren this year. What I have found, though, is damsons. Similar in colouring and texture, sloes are rounder and form clumps on the bush. Damsons hang individually, on a short stalk, and are vaguely egg-shaped. Sloes can be used in a number of drinks – sloe gin being one, where as damsons are more versatile and tasty enough to be eaten as a fruit, make jam with and so on.
However, growing on Engine Lane as they are, next to a notorious landfill and on former industrial land, it’s no wonder they are rotting on the ground. I certainly wouldn’t eat them, but nice to see.
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