November Foraging

[Tony]

I'm just wondering what you all will be foraging this November, we had some great damsons in October, all gone now though. I'm thinking that's mostly the fruit types done for round here, there will be rosehips and the like but they're not so good to eat straight off the bush...

 

[Robson Valley]

You'd be starving here, Tony. Very cold nights (-20C) but dry. Seems to have given wildlife some urgency to eat whatever they can find.
Essentially nothing in the village, even on wasteland properties. This district is a part of a migration flyway for many bird species.
There's nothing left when they go past! My grape vines got gleaned last week, absolutely barren now.
Plus, we had a poor crop of rose hips as I've noticed out of town that they have been gone for a month+

 

[daveO]

There's still a lot of late apples in the orchards here that I might dry and store and wild crab apples that are trying to tempt me into trying crab apple wine again. I made a beautiful crab apple vodka one year that I've never been able to replicate since. My own fault for not keeping better records. I might make some sloe gin now we've had the first frost to improve the fruit but I start to feel bad that I'm stealing from the birds when it starts to get cold.

 

[Robson Valley]

You can save some for the birds. I did in a house I had years ago.
We have two native species of Sorbus (what you call Rowan) and the imported Rowan, itself.
I'd fill a couple of plastic grocery bags with fruit clusters and into my freezer.
At Christmas and beyond ( think 1 m snow and -20C) , I'd decorate a couple of barren trees
with fruit for the birds. Quite popular.

 

[Toddy]

Apart from greens like bittercress, of which there are masses of new plants, we still have Autumn fruiting raspberries, the occasional wild strawberry, rosehips, rowans, apples and quince.
Mushrooms are still popping up in quantity though.

M

 

[daveO]

You can save some for the birds. I did in a house I had years ago.
We have two native species of Sorbus (what you call Rowan) and the imported Rowan, itself.
I'd fill a couple of plastic grocery bags with fruit clusters and into my freezer.
At Christmas and beyond ( think 1 m snow and -20C) , I'd decorate a couple of barren trees
with fruit for the birds. Quite popular.

I tried that with Hazel nuts one year and ended up with a load of free Hazel seedlings growing in various pots in the garden where birds cached them for later.

Good idea with the Rowan berries though. We named my son Rowan so it'll be a fun thing to do with him when he's older.

 

[Robson Valley]

Just about cold enough in the mornings here to start to feed the Ravens again.
I think they paid me an optimistic visit the other day. They never forget who has food.
They have stopped talking. They won't say another word until the end of February.

The Sorbus fruit clusters are sort of like decorating another Christmas tree.
I waited for really brutal weather.
S. sitchensis has berry clusters bigger than your fist and each one is bean-sized.
The birds react like pihrana fish with blood in the water = cleaned off in no time.
Quite entertaining.

 

[Broch]

Still some good fungi in our wood; we had oyster, wood blewit and orange grisette lightly fried in butter with black pepper on toast yesterday - pure joy. There's still fruit on the trees (wild and cultivated) but the sharp drop in temperature today may result in a change in that.
That reminds me; must go give the Sloe Gin a shake!

Cheers,
Broch

 

[Ed the Ted]

Rose hip syrup is easy enough to make, I've got about 4 litres in my cupboard from last week, and a winters supply of sloe and apple jelly from a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately where I am now (west wales coast) there's not much but if I scurry off to a friend's farm in montgomeryshire there should still be plenty of sloes, crabapples and apples in a neglected orchard...

 

[erehwon]

Rose hips here, the wine is already fermenting, syrup in the cupboard and many more being dried for tea over the winter period. Tomorrow we are off hiking to collect apples and the last pears from the abandoned lands around us, here's hoping for a good harvest!

 

[Tony]

Bulgaria sounds like a harvesting heaven

 

[Tony]

Still some good fungi in our wood; we had oyster, wood blewit and orange grisette lightly fried in butter with black pepper on toast yesterday - pure joy. There's still fruit on the trees (wild and cultivated) but the sharp drop in temperature today may result in a change in that.
That reminds me; must go give the Sloe Gin a shake!

Cheers,
Broch

Yeah, I saw plenty of fungi while I was out on friday....