When you have an allotment you very quickly learn that you need to find ways of preserving your harvests. It is very much a case of feast or famine at times; not famine in the case of not having anything to eat from your plot. This doesn't happen too often apart from maybe when you reach the hunger gap in the spring; that time when your over-wintered crops have run out and the spring sowings aren't quite ready yet. But rather more a case of feast or glut I guess! Try as hard as you might, sometimes you can just get overwhelmed with the harvest of whichever veg is in season, whether it's the dreaded courgette glut or runner beans or what have you.
So preserving is an allotmenteer's best friend.
But we can't grow everything we want on our plots and for that we can raid nature's larder, for come September the hedgerows are teeming with berries and the like.
And so it was yesterday, my friend Judi and I headed off to a secret location to harvest fruit from the hedgerow; namely some sloes.
Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn which is one of the earliest shrubs to flower in spring. Masses of white blossom line the hedges and roadways. Looking back I remember the blossom being plentiful this spring so we were hopeful of there being loads of berries.
We weren't disappointed.
The berries have this purple/blue blush on them and darken to a deep purple/black. Ideally it is best to wait until the first frost of the year before harvesting the berries but with our winters getting milder, the first frost can be quite some way off yet in the autumn.
I restricted myself to half a trug-full. Being a pro at sloe-picking, Judi had a bucket and picked 4kg!
Our next stop is the nearest Asda to buy some Gordon's Gin. They currently have the best price on 1lt bottles.
Sloe gin here we come!
