Young Plums (Go For it!)

Beetroot, Pear and Walnut Salad

My wife made a deliciously zingy and very healthy salad, using Beetroot, Pear and Walnut, she also added thinly sliced Turnip, Avocado, crisp Watercress and leaves of Jack by the hedge (Garlic Mustard), from the garden. I supplied the Walnuts and added some Hazelnuts for fun; these nuts were gathered last year during October and September, they keep very well in cool, dry conditions. Apples will also last throughout the Winter, if you store them well.

Walnuts and Hazelnuts

The recent heatwave has kept me out of the midday sun and I decided it was high time to pick the Elderflowers that I have been planning to make champagne with. I got on my bike before it got too hot and cycled over to the local park, beside the river. I got a heady citrus waft off the flowers, as I approached from downwind. I filled my bag in a matter of minutes, getting covered in yellow pollen in the process.

Elder Tree in Flower

The other simple ingredients are Water, Lemons, Sugar, and a dash of White Wine Vinegar. By the time you have this little lot mixed together in a bucket, the kitchen smells terrific and gives you a strong taste of things to come. It is left (covered) in the bucket for 2 days, then the debris is filtered out and the liquid transferred into demijohns for fermentation.

Ready for Fermentation

After a couple of weeks the fermentation should have slowed down enough for bottling in Pressure Safe Bottles - but a word of caution... If fermentation continues too much under pressure, you might, at best, lose half of your lovely Elderflower Champagne all over the room you open it in. Far more dangerous, would be exploding glass bottles, so please, do keep a regular eye on anything you have bottled and always use suitable Pressure Safe Bottles!

Green Cherries

Ongoing observations include, keeping your eyes pealed for immature fruit. If you have identified a likely tree by its blossom, revisit it later, to see if any young fruits are developing. I have already seen young Plums, green Cherries, and tiny Apples and Pears; regular checking will keep you in tune with seasonal developments and ensure you are ready as fruit ripens. I recently noticed Fennel growing out of pavements in the city.

Fennel

Nasturtium are starting to grow in the garden, these are one of the most likeable garden flowers. The leaves and flowers can be eaten, or added to a salad to liven it up. They taste peppery, a bit like Rocket or Water-Cress. The Latin name, Nasturtium, translates as "Twisted Nose!"

Nasturtium 

Apples, Pears, Grapes & Walnuts

It has been a very wet and very busy October. We have processed about 300kgs of apples. I needed a faster way to chop them on my own and a stainless steel Spear & Jackson did the job perfectly!

Gallons and gallons of delicious juice has been produced, some has been Pasteurised for later, some has been turning into cider and lots has been glugged back straight from the press by keen, thirsty workers.

Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard was delayed by stormy weather but we delivered the following week and a gang of curious local kids and adults came out to help, which is what it is all about. We had wheelbarrows full of apples, boxes of pears and even had a bucket load of grapes to press.

The grapes produced a gallon of juice, which is now fermenting into red wine along with my cider and various other alchemical concoctions. We have also been collecting lots of Walnuts, to go with our Hazelnuts; there is a huge tree in Mansbridge, near the orchard. It has delivered a fantastic crop this year, most of which is lying on the green waiting to be gathered or gobbled by hungry squirrels.

My Apple Store is now completely filled to bursting and this should keep us in fruit through the winter, with a little luck. Unblemished Apples will keep for many months if stored in a cool dark place. They should not be left touching each other, so that if one goes bad, it will not affect the others and can be easily removed.

Summer Fades to Autumn

Blackberries are currently available all over the place and did yo know that the sweetest fruit will be found on the South side of the bushes, due to the direction of the sun (in the Northern hemisphere). So this means it is, in theory, possible to navigate by taste!

Mulberries are also ripening nicely too.

It looks like it will be a very good year for Apples and Pears and people tell me that they are falling early in their gardens. Personally I like to wait until late September / October because they always get fatter and sweeter as time goes by. Walnuts will be ready around the same time as the Apples and Pears. Plums, in many different colours, are still available now.

However, the end of the school holidays has always meant to me that Hazelnuts are ripe and falling. I have been gathering pockets full during my lunch hour and transporting them home in my sandwich box, to store in a wicker basket for later use. I keep some at work as a snack and smash them open with whatever I find to hand, when I desire a nibble.

Signs of Spring

As I ride my bike to work, through the February weather every day, I notice changes, over time, in the roadside foliage. I think about what might be growing there in a few months and I make a mental note to check back on my prospects in the Summer.

Winter & Spring is always a lean time for foragers, especially those of the Urbane persuasion. So to entertain myself during the cold dark periods I like to test out my home made drinks and preserves to see how they are maturing. I was delighted with my Ransom Capers. 

My Elderberry Wine seems effective at staving off the colds, the Walnuts and Hazelnuts are great for baking or simply nibbling, the Cider and Apple juice is still lovely, and the Grape wine has matured into a perfectly tolerable rose. 

So, to keep you amused during the Winter/Spring months, Dear Reader, here is a fun quiz, to get you thinking about the hedgerows in your own area...

1. Identify the tree & flower images on this page. 
2. Work out if they will deliver anything edible. 
3. Work out the time of year that you would harvest and produce.
4. Plan what you could make from the available bounty.

Harvest Moon

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is once again upon us. A baleful harvest moon illuminated the evenings of the equinox weekend, and the traditional Autumnal storms came billowing in from the Atlantic. None of this prevented us from breaking out the Apple pressing kit. 

We had been harvesting loads of Apples and on the Saturday, we set about pressing them into 35 litres of juice; I filled my demijohns, and several gallons are now merrily bubbling away, tuning into cider. The remaining juice was pasteurised and bottled up, ready for the forthcoming year.

We also collected enough Pears for me to produce my essential annual stock of Chunky Pear and Walnut Chutney. We still had Walnuts and Hazel nuts left over from last year, and fresh ones are falling already, early, like so many other things this year.

It turns out that the 2018 weather was perfect for vineyards and it promises to be a special vintage - we harvested our own grapes from our allotment and produced several gallons of tangy juice, most of which will be fermented into a new rose wine, Chateau Vin du Witts Hill, perhaps.

Sweet Chestnuts also look like they will be falling soon, we will be out gathering, and competing for the largest, fattest fruits to bring home and roasting them on our fire as the cooler, darker evenings draw in.

Ransoms & Flapjack

The plum and blackthorn flowers are wilting, and being replaced by cherry blossom, cheerful daffodils are giving way to beautiful bluebells. When walking in local woodland, bright green leaves are beginning to fill the hedges and trees, and the dappled shade is punctuated by the pungent aroma of wild garlic and ransoms.

April showers had persuaded us to work on some long overdue decorating jobs. The house was still in chaos so the kids and I decided to take a break from the mess and put some of our stored nuts to use, by revisiting one of our favourite recipes for delicious flapjack. 

We had baskets of hazelnuts and Walnuts left over from last summer and often had cracking/nibbling sessions but this little lot had me sat down with the nut cracker listening to the radio for a quite a while. I find this quite relaxing.

Other than the shelling, the kids did all the baking, and after a couple of hours weighing, mixing and cooking, they had created a superbly scrumptious result.

We have also been experimenting with various Ransom/Wild Garlic recipes. After a quick trip to the local woods, the kids made some delicious Garlic Butter. This is ingenious and can be stored in the fridge, then spread upon toast to create instant Garlic Bread!

We also tried scrambled eggs with shredded Ransoms, this turned out to be a simple but delicious twist on the traditional healthy snack.  We then combined Ransom leaves with further Walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper to make a very tasty Ransom Pesto to have with pasta. Our next project will be to pickle some Ransom Capers.

Meanwhile, the children have found an alternative use for our nut stash, hand-feeding an increasingly tame local squirrel!

Spring Snow Storms

I know very little about the distance between stars, or the motives of Pepys, but I can always smell the Summertime at the latest by early Spring. 

We are currently bracing ourselves for a big snow-storm, this morning it was -8 when I got on my bike to commute to work. There will be plenty of cold and frost yet to come but the signs are all there, among the flora and fauna.

Plum blossom is beginning to bloom on the branches and this is always my personal first sign of the approaching Spring.

This Winter I have been enjoying the occasional medicinal glass of last year's  Elderberry Port or Vin de Noix to stave of  any colds or other ills. 

The Cider is going down well too, although the Perry still needs a month or so more to age. The Mulberry Gin seems to be vanishing into the ether, evaporating my wife might suggest!

The Pear and Walnut Chutney, a huge personal favourite is still making a regular appearance in the fridge. It goes so well with cheese and perks up my lunchtime sandwiches a treat.

We still have bucket-loads of Hazelnuts and Walnuts left, despite my best efforts to nibble through our hoard during the chilly, dark evenings. So, I think we need to spend some time shelling a whole big load, and then make lots of flapjack and chocolate brownies. It shouldn't be too difficult to persuade the kids to help with that job...

Christmas is Coming, Apparently!

Christmas is coming, apparently. I'm sure nobody had noticed, so, hopefully this post will be a timely reminder... Don't forget to make a note on the 25th (December) on your calendar. You might, for instance, want to consider some kind of preparation in advance.

I have been busy creating Sloe Gin; Sloes seemed thin on the ground this year but fortunately I stashed a load in the freezer earlier on. With gin, it occurs to me that we gathered the Juniper Berries during the Summer, so no one can accuse me of not planning in advance.

I harvested some Green Walnuts in June and this was the beginning of my Vin de Noix, which is now bottled and ready for those cold Winter nights. I added some spices this year to make it even more seasonal.

During July my son and I gathered a bucket-load of Elderberries and then kickstarted my Elderberry wine. This is the perfect archaic, alchemical brew for spicing up into Mulled wine for friends and festive gatherings. Mulled Cider also always goes down well at parties, and this has all now been safely bottled and stored.

My favourite Chunky Pear & Walnut Chutney makes a nice home-made gift and my wife has now added a batch of Sweet Chilli Jam to our cupboard bound cannon.

All that remains now is to forage some Mistletoe and create some Xmas door wreaths. Hopefully the family will be kept so busy making and distributing things that they won't even notice that their are no presents under the tree yet... Actually, that reminds me, we need a Christmas tree!

Finally, while we are talking about presents, don't forget that the Urbane Forager book is the perfect gift to buy for virtually everyone!

Mansbridge Apple Day 2017 Community Orchard

As we waited patiently to see what the weather would do, on our Apple Day at Mansbridge Community Orchard, my daughter and I baked a scrumptious seasonal Apple Cake to take along. 

We did eventually set the start time back a couple of hours, to dodge the rain and this did catch a couple of people out but fortunately, they all came back later and stayed on until the end of the day. 

Despite the grey skies, damp ground and dripping trees, we had a good turn out, with lots of new, local children joining in. The trees were filled with fruit, as they always are and teams of pickers were shuttling back and forth between the trees and the tables.

At the Southampton Woodcraft Folk base camp, apples were being enthusiastically sliced, diced and chopped up into smaller segments, which were then tipped into the scratting mills, pulped down and tipped into the various cider press baskets.

Then the press screws were turned down and the tastiest golden nectar began to flow by the gallon. People were dodging between the presses filling bottles, various containers or cups and glugging back the delicious apple juice. 

Altogether it was a very successful and fun day for everyone concerned; some people even found time to gather some walnuts from the massive tree nearby (I collected five kilos, in twenty minutes, the day before). 

According to some sources, it was said that in the 'golden age,' when men lived upon acorns the gods lived upon Walnuts, hence the name of Juglans, or Jupiter's nuts.

Don't forget to put the Urbane Forager book on your Xmas present lists!