Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White

Today was another day not to be stuck in the office, so I made the most of my short sleeved shirt and camera during my lunch break.

I have been waiting for one of the cherry trees just outside to bloom fully, mainly because it looks pink and frilly, and I had the Modern Romance song, stuck firmly in my head.  I shot it in bright sunlight against the backdrop of an Industrial building. I’m not a great photographer but this jumped out when I got it home.

Wow, I feel like a pro!

It looked equally stunning against the bright blue sky.

None to shabby either.

I was hoping to find some apple blossom peeping through; I wanted to photograph some for a section on tree identification on the Urbane Forager website and had noticed the tiny pink buds last week. It was a fairly long walk but I figured I could make the round trip in the hour, even given a few dalliances.

Pink and Closed

I was not to be disappointed.

White When Open

I even located a gigantic new apple tree that I had never noticed before, next to a cherry (see Perez Prado / Mack David lyric below). Both were covered in full white blossom.

Blooming Heck!

While I was taking a close up of a flower, I spotted (ho ho) a tiny ladybird running in and out; I managed to photograph him eventually.

Almost too good to be true

On the walk back to work I noticed that the perfume of cherry trees actually does smell a bit like the fruit tastes. I also shot another frilly (but this time white) cherry, which looked rather nice illuminated from the back by the sun.

White and Frilly

Then sadly it was back to the grindstone.

Now though it is Friday evening, I am alone with a glass of red wine and the prospect of a sunny weekend reclines languidly ahead...

Lyric...

It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
When your true lover comes your way
It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
The poets say

The story goes that once a cherry tree
Beside an apple tree did grow
And there a boy once met his bride to be
Long long ago

The boy looked into her eyes, it was a sight to enthrall
The breezes joined in their sighs, the blossoms started to fall
And as they gently carressed, the lovers looked up to find
The branches of the two trees were intertwined

And that is why the poets always write
If there's a new moon bright above
It's cherry pink and apple blossom white
When you're in love

Purple Reign

Bluebells

March filled our world with vivid shades of green. April now introduces a different colour pallet. Birds are more vocal, singing to attract mates or proclaim territory, and starting to build nests.

Wisteria

This month is more commonly known for enchanting woodland displays of Bluebells, and wisteria wrapped cottages, but you cannot eat these plants.  

Cherry Blossom (White)

April also brings us Apple and Cherry Blossom. If you are familiar with these trees, you can be sure of where the first fruit (Cherries) will turn dark red and ripen in June. Similarly, with Apple blossom, you can easily spot where the trees are, but they might not be ready to pick until later in the year, around September.

Apple Blossom (Pink)

Japan is so famous for its cherry blossom season that it has created a tourist over-population problem. Fortunately (for some perhaps) in the UK, most people don’t even notice it ;-)

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Incidentally, the song, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White – is quite misleading! Cherry trees with pink blossom are often ornamental hybrids, bred purely for the flowers not the juicy fruit we all desire.

Jack by the Hedge

More significantly, my favourite foraging edibles in April are Wild Garlic, Ransoms and Jack by the Hedge, commonly known as Garlic/Mustard. These tasty plants are often easier to detect by their pungent smell, particularly in woodland settings. The leaves are very simple to collect and make easy additions to cooking. The flowers or buds can be pickled to make tasty capers. You should not dig up the bulbs but leave them for next year.

Rhubarb

Our purple sprouting broccoli is looking and tasting very nice too. Also, I’m now on my fifth Rhubarb crumble! I noted that the stalks in the garden were quite thin this time, so I gave the plot a copious watering. We’ve had three months of rain followed by three months of no rain at all, making gardening more complex. We should be recognising signs of Climate Change, as well as signs of Spring.

Ransoms

Up the Apple & Pears

A Lovely Big hedgerow Apple Tree

Now is the easiest time to spot fruit trees in the hedgerows and parks and common land, even if you do not have much knowledge of tree types. This weekend we stopped under a small but florid crab apple tree to shelter from the April rain (this is certainly the wettest drought I’ve ever seen). The prolific buzzing of bees in the canopy made a welcome change from the constant background drone of traffic.

A Great Spot For A Picnic; by a Canal, with Free Fruit and Walnuts

Apple and pear trees are coming into bloom and the blossom will be abundant, which is why, like, Cherries, they are sometimes planted as ornamental trees.

Apple

Many countries celebrate the flowering of fruit trees in Spring. It is a time of rejuvenation and transformation.

Pear

So, when you next spot a tree covered in flowers, take time to look a little closer and see if you can identify what fruit it will bear.

Apple

Structurally, apple and pear trees can look similar although pears tend to be taller and more upright in their growth. Apple trees often show signs of previous pruning but if they have been neglected they can get very gnarled and busy.

Apple

The flowers of pear trees do look similar and both trees begin to grow leaves before flowers but the buds of apple blossom are often tinged with pink; whereas pears are likely to be pure white

The easiest way to determine apple from pear, before the fruit is visible, is by examining the leaves. Pear leaves are more pointed in shape and have a more sharply serrated edge. Apple leaves have more gentle serrations around the edges and a more rounded appearance.

Pear

Of course there are many diverse varieties within any type of fruit tree, so differences will always need to be accounted for. The Urbane Forager’s free Seasonal id Sheets are still available for download to your computer and printing off for convenience…

It All Depends How You Look

I am considered a grown up now, and I have two young children myself. I am keen to get then familiar with the world outside and all the wonders of nature and her perpetual cycles of birth, growth, death and rejuvenation. I want to educate them about wildlife, trees and plants – not computers and mobile phones, these things will change with time. Hopefully nature will not. Personally, I cannot imagine a more healthy, vital and wholesome activity for a family than climbing a tree in order to pick and eat fresh wild fruit.

I work on a computer in my current job and I make a point of getting out of the office every lunchtime for a walk or jog through pleasant woods and fields nearby. While habitually doing this, I began to notice the passing of the seasons more closely and took note of which trees blossomed in the spring. I then began to identify some of these trees as plums or damsens (always first to bloom in spring), cherries and apple trees. They were effectively wild trees or on public/common ground.



Do you see traffic or proto-plums?



Once I became able to identify these trees I started to spot them wherever I went. It all depends how you look. It’s a bit like, when a friend gets a new car or bike, you know what it looks like and you keep an eye out for them on the road. Suddenly you begin to see similar vehicles all over the place, it soon becomes hard to believe that you hadn’t noticed how many there were on the road before – they seem to be everywhere. As you might expect, it’s exactly the same with trees, only the opportunity to benefit from this new found skill is going to be far more fruitful, than car identification.

Once I tuned in to these trees, I started to notice apple trees in the car parks, in hedgerows, in housing estates and in recreation grounds, it’s even easier when they have fruit on them or on the ground under them. I spotted cherries surrounding the B & Q car park and all along the main road into town, beside the railway track and in the community centre grounds and even outside the building in the industrial estate where I worked. Naturally, if you identify the blossoms, when they first arrive in spring and note their locations down (this is easy with modern mapping technology) you will be the first one ready when the fruit ripens.

Do you see the cars or the Cheries that will be here in June?

Cherry trees are considered ornamental due to their florid blossom that shows shortly after the plums herald the onset of spring. Consequently, they are often planted along avenues and by roadsides I have also found them used in and around car parks. People though seem to overlook the fact that they are cherry trees and that this is where cherries come from. The same thing is true for apple and pear trees, which blossom slightly later.



Do you see industry or Cherry trees?

Orchards and apple trees enjoy a rich heritage in our cultural history. Almost everyone eats apples, or so it seems, and there are a myriad of different types. Interestingly if you plant an apple pip and it grows, a completely new and random type of apple tree will result and the fruit will taste quite different from its parent tree. The only way to propagate as same type of tree/fruit is to graft a branch onto new rootstock, but that’s all getting a bit unnecessarily technical. Instead of preserving familiar types of tree, you could always try to create your own new type – although it may taste horrible or even bear no fruit, at least it is original.

Can you see Cherry trees and Hazle stands or just a dog walker?

My wife spotted a pear tree on waste ground near the children’s school and picked a few that were easily in reach. Then she noticed several apple trees in the local swimming pool car park. We drove to the pool with some friends and picked a veritable hoard by standing on the roof of our car, then throwing them into picnic blankets held out by our enthusiastic children. They were delicious rosy red apples with pinkish flesh! We named them Flemming Park Reds after the leisure centre. I also began collecting fruit during my lunch hour, initially just eating a couple of plums and bringing some home for the family. Then I started finding apples, which my son and I tend to eat every day.

Cherry, Apple and Pear Blossom

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

This evocative little lyric comes form an obscure song that I enjoyed as a teenager. It has always stayed with me and seems to become more pertinent with time.

Cherry Blossom

We are experiencing an unseasonably warm April, not that I'm complaining. The Cherry trees have been springing into flower and the blossom filled branches are stretching skywards. Pruned Cherry trees are normally kept to a few metres height but they can reach far further when left to their own devices.

It Will be Difficult to Pick These Cherries

Cherries are a native tree in the UK but it never ceases to amaze me how many there are in the parks, woodland and hedgerows. We started spotting the florid limbs poking up through the hedges along the motorway recently, not that I advocate advising picking them from the verges of arterial roads. 

Cherry Blossom

Cherries are the first fruits that we pick in the Summer. There are plenty to be found in the city's lovely parks and the pavements of quiet streets. We even pick them from industrial estates at the weekends, when they become peaceful places.

Pear Blossom (I Believe)

The exceptional Spring weather is also bringing Apple and Pear trees into bloom, which makes me think that I should organise a Blossom Walk at the Mansbridge Community Orchard fairly soon.

In other news... We have finished putting the final touches to the new Urbane Forager book and will soon have an approximate release date for you. This blog has received over 100,000 page views and now contains over 250 posts! A Great Big Fat Thank You to all our readers, please tell your friends and help spread the word...

Apple Blossom, Pesto & Rhubarb Crumble

The sky was blue and the birds were in good voice, so we took a walk down to Mansbridge to check on the progress of the Community Orchard blossom. En route we passed the Pitch and Putt course, which is sadly now closed due to a lack of funding by our ever more squeezed council.

We are pleased to report that the Apple trees were in magnificent shape and looked fantastic in full bloom. We also noticed signs that other people had been helping prune off dead wood to enhance the health of the trees.

While we were exploring, we managed to open up access to a couple of new Apple trees and continued to cut back brambles to keep them out of the branches.

Later that night we made Pesto for our pasta using our stash of Hazel and Walnuts from last year and Basil. 

The wonderful weekend continued in fine fashion as the Saints (Southampton Football Club) won their final few matches of the season with a flourish, to finish on record points and higher up the Premier league than ever before. 

To polish off the proceedings (after I had finished running around the garden celebrating), we made one of my favourite seasonal puddings, Rhubarb Crumble, made from the first fruits of our allotment. 

Simply delicious!

In Praise of Crab Apples

While foraging about the place, I noted a lot of Crab Apple trees. I don’t know what the crop is normally like but they all seem heavily laden this season, so I think we should all try some experimentation with this very common native, but often neglected fruit. I would have thought that you could make Crab Apple Wine,  at the very least. I know that it is traditional to combine these baby apples with your apple crop when making cider.

When I was a young lad, we used them as weapons. There was a huge tree that we visited in the local woods. We would stab the apples onto the end of long, whippy sticks and then sling them ballistically (my spell checker wants to turn this into sadistically, which would also be true) at each other. We would return home later tired and bruised.

Anyway, enough history, I hunted for some recipes and this is what I turned up…

Crab Apple Chutney

Ingredients

2kg mix of crab or cooking apples peeled, cored and chopped into little cubes. Shopping list

450g brown sugar

2 onions

4tsp turmeric

20 cloves

500ml cider vinegar

2tsp chilli powder

2tsp salt

10cm ginger

How to make it

Place the apples in a heavy based saucepan stir in all other ingredients, cover and bring to the boil.

Reduce heat to low and stir chutney, be sure it doesn’t stick.

Cook uncovered for about 1 hr to 90 mins, depending on size of cubes, cooking apples will fall apart, crab apples won’t. Stir regularly, it will reduce and thicken.

Leave to cool completely then pour into sterilised jars and label.

Will give approx 12, 220ml jars. Keeps for up to 6 months, tastes best after first month.

Crab Apple Jelly

1. Wash the apples, removing any bruised fruit. Put in a saucepan; fill with water to just cover the apples.

2. Bring to the boil and simmer until the fruit is soft (about 30 minutes).

3. Pour the pulp into a jelly bag or several layers of muslin and let drip overnight into a pan. Do NOT squeeze the bag or it will make the juice cloudy.

4. The next day, measure the juice, and add sugar in the ratio of 10 parts juice to 7 of sugar. Add some lemon juice, bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

5. Keep at a rolling boil for 40 minutes, skimming off the froth. To test the set, chill a dessertspoon in the refrigerator.

6. When the jelly is set, it will solidify on the back of the spoon. Pour into warm, sterilised preserving jars and tightly seal while still slightly warm. Store in a cool dark place.

Chilli Crab Apple Jelly (Cottage Sm Holder)

Ingredients:

•600g of crab apples washed and chopped

•35g of medium red chilli peppers, washed and chopped with seeds in

•1 litre of water

•White granulated sugar - 500g to each 500ml of juice

Method:

1. Put the chopped crab apples and chillies in a large heavy bottomed saucepan.

2. Add 1 litre of water (they should just be floating). Bring to the boil and simmer until the crab apples soften and become pulpy (lid on). About 30-45 minutes.

3. Strain through a muslin square or jelly bag overnight.

4. Add the juice to a large heavy bottomed pan and add the sugar. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. When the juice and sugar has come to the boil remove from the heat and skim well. Return to the heat and bring to a rolling boil until setting point is reached. Aprox 15 minutes.

5. Skim and pour into warm sterilised jars.

Pickled Crab Apples

8 quarts crab apples

6 sticks cinnamon

1/4 cup whole cloves

1 quart vinegar

2-1/2 lbs sugar

1. Select apples of uniform size, wash and remove blossom ends, but do not pare.

2. Tie spices loosely in cheesecloth bag.

3. Mix vinegar and sugar, add spices and heat to boiling. Add apples and reheat mixture slowly to avoid bursting skins. Simmer until apples are tender.

4. Pack apples in sterile jars, cover with boiling vinegar syrup and seal.

Makes 10 pints.

Crab Apple Liqueur

4 quarts crab apples, washed, cored and quartered

4 cups sugar

3 cups vodka

1. Fill 1 (4-quart) mason jar with tight-fitting lid with prepared crab apples.

2. Add the 4 cups of sugar and three cups of vodka.

3. Store the jar on its side, turning once every day for 16 days to help the sugar to dissolve.

4. After 16 days, filter out the fruit bits and bottle.

Make Family Trips Fun Again

Beautiful Plum Blossom - Out Now!

Many people seem to dread family days out. They do not seem able to find something to do or somewhere to go that will suit everyone's wants and needs.

To an extent, this is normal and obvious to some people - adults, children, teenagers, boys, girls, men, women - don't they always want different things? Isn't that natural? Of course different people will favour different things if given a choice but when everyone has to go out to the same place, on a day out or a holiday for instance, problems can crop up.

Spring is Coming

But who or what is to blame and what can be done to ease the situation? We can always blame lack of time, lack of conversation, mobile phones, meals eaten in front of the TV, modern technology, social media, online gaming is a popular scapegoat. We could blame teenagers, although most of them are normally more interesting and polite than many of the adults I know.

A Stone Style

Foraging has several advantages as a family activity.

• It takes place outdoors and involves walking, so it can help to keep you fit and strong.
• Talking is always much more easy when you are walking or doing something else at the same time.
• You will strengthen your connection to nature, the seasons, weather etc.
• Anyone can do it with a relatively small amount of knowledge or practise.
• Small children and teenagers can enjoy it as much as adults and the elderly.
• It can be integrated with technology, if you wish.
• It is not a "gendered activity".
• You can go out with a specific aim, to a certain place or you can do it in any place or time, just because you happen to be there at that time.
• You can do it all year around - although you will mainly pick fruit and nuts in the Summer and Autumn.
• You can learn about geography, mapping, natural navigation, healthy diet, the seasons, household finances, biology, chemistry, cooking, baking, preserving, pickling, and creating alcoholic drinks for the grown ups.

Awesome Hambledon HIll

The best time to start learning a new skill is 5 years ago. The second best time is NOW! This is true whatever the time of year but, as it happens, Spring is the best time to start discovering how to forage. This is because you can spot fruit trees best, by recognising their blossom. Fortunately the various fruit trees that we harvest from tend to flower roughly in sequence.

A Steep Start

1. First comes the Plum and Blackthorn (Sloe), around March, filling the hedgerows with a white bloom. People will also notice Daffodils at this time.
2. Next you tend to spot the Cherry trees and they grow everywhere; it is amazing how many grow alongside roads around April. Bluebells are filling the forest floor at the same time.
3. May brings Pear and Apple blossom and also Elderflower, Wild Garlic and Ransoms to herald in the start of Summer.

On Hambledon Hill

If you log the locations of the flowers, you will then be able to check the development of immature fruit. Thus you can be the first to recognise the Cherries as they ripen. For us, picking the first crop of juicy delicious Cherries on a sunny day is a magical moment. We normally eat too many, straight off the tree but we try to bring plenty home for eating, baking or turning into jam.

The 360 View is Simply Awesome

From this point on, the seasons get busier, depending on time and how much of the different fruits you wish to harvest. Any walk, ride or drive in the city, park or countryside is instantly hugely enhanced if you and your family have even half an eye open for the masses of free fresh fruit available. All the information you require is available here.

free, downloadable seasonal id pdfs

the Urbane Forager book
Falling Fruit free access map

A Stone Circle (Guarded by Alpacas) with Hambledon Hill