Poor Crop - Sloe's

[In Wood]

I have just picked 3lb of Sloes and there are still plenty left.
Sloehunter, you have PM on this as you are not far from me.

But yes I think the crop this year is greatly reduced, also what is out there seems to be earlier than normal too.

I had 2lb of Bullace a couple of weeks back and made fantastic jam, added a few elderberry’s just for taste too, mmmmmmmmmm, it is delicious.

I have about 5-6lb of apples (cooking) too, wife has made a nice apple pie and we will be doing sauce and jelly with the rest and I have just found out who owns a field near me with more apple and pear trees in that are just falling to rot, so off there later this week to ask permission to pick, of course in return for some of the finished product, its’ polite you know.

I also have some acorns drying at the moment and another load ready for picking, the hazel nut crop is terrible, hardly any this year.

Oh well just my 2 penny worth.

 

[durulz]

I'm talking out of my backside.
Went out for a ride on sunday and saw a blackthorn bush with a few sloes. Had a closer look and it was absolutely laden. And not only was it heaving with sloes, there were also SEVERAL other blackthorns equally over-flowing with sloes!
I don't want to gloat here, but really, it was quite embarrassing how many there were. Even better, it was a site well off the beaten track and my bet is no one else harvests them or knows they are there or knows what they are; because nothing else can explain the abundance of them. I've never seen so many. I had a plastic bag with me, filled that up, and had barely made a dent in the supply.
If it makes you feel any better, though, I've had a poor time getting blackberries.

 

[locum76]

me and swmblt have just been out for a bimble, we picked about three kilos of sloes, and basically we only stopped because we were soaking wet. we got a big back of cress from the canal feeder, scrumped a few apples and we even found a few quinces in the garden. it has been quite a good morning really.

for the sloe gin makers here, what are your feelings on freezing them? is it really necessary to do so if you have picked them before the frost? i have read elsewhere that the whole bit about leaving them until the first frost was about ensuring a good ripening time on the tree.

 

[durulz]

for the sloe gin makers here, what are your feelings on freezing them? is it really necessary to do so if you have picked them before the frost? i have read elsewhere that the whole bit about leaving them until the first frost was about ensuring a good ripening time on the tree.

The point of freezing them is to burst the skin so that the juice of the fruit combines with the booze being used. Otherwise you will have to ***** each berry to ensure the skin is broken. Which is time-consuming and laborious. The action of freezing them and defrosting them bursts the skin and saves you all the trouble.
Quite where the advice about leaving them until first frost comes from I have no idea. Might have something to do with ensuring they are ripe (although the ones I picked over the weekend were very ripe - some even starting to rot), so I suspect the advice was given to, again, ensure the skins had burst. Maybe.
I always freeze and defrost sloes. And pick them well before the first or else they will have eitehr been picked by someone else or just rotted away. Maybe it's a climate change thing. Maybe, in times gone by, one could expect an earlier frost and it was a way of knowing when they were ripe to pick. If that's the origin of the saying then I'd say it's no longer relevant.
Anyway. The reason for freezing the sloes is to burst the skin.

 

[locum76]

cheers Durulz.

it did seem a bit odd to have to freeze them AND ***** the skins. I think you are right about the old saying about the frost too. further research I have done suggests they used to take much longer to ripen.

i found this forum very useful by the way...

http://www.sloe.biz/pip/index.php

Rob

 

[ang1e]

Hi Locum76,

Can you give me an idea where you found your sloe's, I've been looking for ages and had no luck, I'm fairly close to you in Rosyth.

Angie

 

[KRF1963]

Absolutely none to speak around my usual York haunts - must have about 100yds of Hawthorn with about 6 sloes between them!

I am devastated - anybody know anywhere around York with a crop worth picking?

 

[Ajali]

No acorns, no sloes, blackberries rotting on the stems....

Ditto. no hazelnuts either.
Annoyed, as my friends were all begging me for more sloe gin (had a great crop last year - one hedge was literally purple)
This sucks.
However, pretty good mushroom year.
Horse mushroom, chanterelle, a couple of hedgehog mushrooms, honey fungus, loads of waxcaps...

 

[xylaria]

PLEASE Can everyone put food out for the birds this winter. All the hedgerow foods mentioned on this thread are what birds feed off in winter. We can live without sloegin, birds are having a very hard winter with so many food sources failing in one year.
Fat balls, mealworms, sunflower seeds, nuts, ect, etc it doesn't cost much.

 

[littlebiglane]

PLEASE Can everyone put food out for the birds this winter. All the hedgerow foods mentioned on this thread are what birds feed off in winter. We can live without sloegin, birds are having a very hard winter with so many food sources failing in one year.
Fat balls, mealworms, sunflower seeds, nuts, ect, etc it doesn't cost much.

Good call.

 

[John Fenna]

Aways do - but those theiving tree rats get most of the stuff we put out!

 

[Kerne]

Loads of crab apples - less than bumper crop of sloes. (Glos.)

 

[Wayland]

B*%%#Y council just cut down our local crab apple tree so they could use a digger to clear a ditch instead of doing it with a spade.

I'm furious

and it certainly doesn't help the birds any.