Done it already, I have two bottles of sloe gin on the go, made with nothing other than Plymouth Gin and local sloes. I have been watching them too and noticed although some trees bear green berries, other bear partally ripe berries and some have the sloes fully ripe, soft and even shrivelling on the branch, I got berries off the latter. Also I have noticed this year, the Black thorn, well, some trees have fully ripe pea sized sloe berries.
So I got an early batch of gin on, aim to go for the other trees in a couple of weeks time.
But one thing was a wonder, a patch where I knew there were loads, I went there on Thursday, and every single sloe berry was gone, completely gone, no berries left of any kind. There were tyre tracks around and all the undergrowth was crumpled down, but the trees bore leaves only,
Blackberry wine next, as this years crop is awesome, in fact my foray to collect sloes was interspersed with bouts of picking squash in the fingers big juicy black berries. And whilst I was thinking of that, I noticed the rose hips, haws, elderberry and gone wild apple trees. Found something I have yet to identify, something that resembles plum, but the fruits are yellowy red, big and ripe.
