Cherry Aid

The Elderflowers are in full bloom now and the sweet smell of pollen is in the air. So, I hope you are all making cordial and champagne…

Elderflowers

Cherries are ripening on the trees now too and you’ll need to keep a close eye on them – there’s a fine line between the bright yellow/red sharp fruit that the birds will gobble and the darker sweeter ones that we want to scoff ourselves. I even saw a squirrel gorging himself in a tree the other day!

Easy Picking

We have already been eating cherries off the earlier trees and they are very nearly there. The tree outside my office and the big one at St Deny’s Community Centre are often the first local trees to ripen and I use these as a barometer to know when to start searching in earnest.

Delicious

My son and I picked a bucket-load of big fat juicy sweet ones in St. Deny’s the other day. You could see from the leaves on the ground that other people had been picking them too, which is good news because the main purpose of this blog is to promote just this kind of behaviour. I have been keeping an eye on the B&Q crop too.

Cherry Plums Ripe Soon

Of course, when it comes to cherry pickers, we have secret weapons… Our telescopic Apple pickers also work very well with cherries and plums, which will be coming soon too. We will be back in St Deny’s, fully tooled up, very soon, we spotted a tree that was absolutely laden with dangling red jewels, which were almost,  but not quite fully ripe….

I Spy Cherry Pie

Cherries in St. Deny’s Save Many Pennies

Tragedy…

My first batch of Elderflower Champagne has gone all gloopy!

I tested a bottle to see how the pressure was building up, it fizzed appropriately, it smelled delicious but it was far too glutinous. A quick search on the web showed that my experience was not unique and various people offered differing advice.

I deferred to my friend Kevin, who is a virologist, he has a very powerful microscope and knows what he is looking for. Kevin said it was a bacterial problem and so I sadly poured all two gallons down the sink (it did clean the stainless steel beautifully), rather than risk testing it for toxins on myself. I have since managed to pick enough to start a third batch using Campden tablets and champagne yeast, as I did on my second batch (which has already popped one cork and tastes delicious).

On a lighter note, my children only have one fruit on their minds recently, Cherries!

I picked a sandwich box full of sweet, dark cherries, in Hedge End, during my lunch hour and had also spotted a large bunch of super-sized beauties in St. Deny’s. I planned to come back with the children and a picking pole, to reach the high fruit and my daughter took no persuading, as we filled a large Tupperware box in about 20 mins.

Yes, they do taste as lovely as they look!