How to Hunt Out a Hedgerow Harvest
by Ann Marie Hendry
One of the joys of late summer and early autumn is walking
or cycling along hedgerows and woodland edges, hunting for the abundant free
food on offer – sweet-tart brambles, fat rosehips, huge clusters of glistening
rowan berries, purple-black sloes, and more. Fruits from some of the most
common species of trees and shrubs can be easily processed into autumnal
delights such as jams, jellies, pies or even a cheeky tipple.
You don’t need much equipment to start foraging – a
harvesting basket, box, or bag, a pair of gloves to protect your hands from
thorns and nettles, and a good plant identification book are all useful.
Rowan trees (also known as mountain ash) bear small, vivid
red fruits in clusters, which makes them easy to spot from a distance. Rowans
are tolerant of quite poor soil conditions and can often be found in dry, rocky
places – it’s not unknown to find them growing in the walls or roofs of ruined
buildings or even, believe it or not, in the branches of other trees!
Rowan berries are most often made into a jelly, paired with
crab apples for pectin, but they can also be used to flavor liqueurs and
schnapps. Harvest them when they’re fully red and ripe, but before they begin
to soften. They’re quite tart raw, but cooking and adding sugar tames the
flavour.
Blackberries and Elderberries
Elder is perhaps more famous for the wine and cordial made
from its frothy flowers, but its berries can also be made into wine, added
whole to apple pies, or turned into tasty elderberry jelly. They’re ready to
pick when the berries are black, plump and beginning to droop.
For both rowan and elder, the easiest way to harvest and
prepare is to remove the whole cluster by snipping the stem, then at home wash
the berries and strip them from the stalks with a fork.
Blackberries, or brambles, are rampant spreaders, which is
good news for the hungry forager. The secret to the blackberry’s success lies
in its ability to propagate itself by tip layering – the spiny stems arch and
root where the tip touches the ground, and in this way they can ‘walk’ for
quite some distance.
If you’ve ever gone brambling you’ll know that the flavor
can vary considerably from bush to bush, with some being very sweet and others
more tart. They ripen over a long period too, so fruits from the same bush will
also be in different stages of sweetness, with those at the tips being the
earliest to ripen.
Blackberries can be cooked in pies or made into delicious
bramble jelly, but I confess that I enjoy them best fresh as a welcome energy
boost when out walking.
Haws and Sloes
Hawthorn and blackthorn are the villains of the hedgerow –
armed to the teeth with thorns that are ready to prick the thumb or poke out
the eye of a careless forager. Hawthorn fruits (haws) are bright red and not
unlike rowan berries, but the leaves of the trees are distinctive – the
hawthorn’s are small and wavy-edged, as opposed to rowan’s slender, oval
leaflets. Haws should be harvested when slightly soft. The native British
species (Crataegus monogyna) isn’t great raw unfortunately, being quite
thin-fleshed and dry-tasting, but they do make good hawthorn jelly. Be careful
not to eat the stones, as they can cause stomach upsets.
Sloe Gin
Despite being the ancestor of all cultivated plums, the
fruit of the blackthorn is much too astringent to eat raw. Blackthorn fruits,
known as sloes, can be used for preserves or in wine-making, but the most
common usage is for flavouring gin. Sloes are best picked when softened or
‘bletted’ after the first frost, but popping them in the freezer overnight will
have the same effect. Mix them with half their weight in sugar, add some cheap
gin and let them steep for two or three months, shaking regularly until the
sugar has dissolved. Your sloe gin should be ready in time for Christmas, and
the gin-infused berries can be recycled into gin sloe chocolates.
All varieties of rose, wild and cultivated, are edible
(although you will need to refrain from deadheading your garden roses if you
want to enjoy the hips). Wild roses can often be found climbing through hedges,
and the outer flesh can be eaten raw – you need to be careful to avoid biting
into the hairy seed and pith however, as it is an internal irritant.
Making jelly or syrup are the easiest ways to process
rosehips as the seeds are strained out. During World War II, people in the UK
were encouraged to harvest wild rosehips due to their extremely high vitamin C
content, and children were often given a spoonful of rosehip syrup a day to
boost good health. You can also make rosehip wine or herbal tea.
When food is free it’s tempting to harvest everything in
sight, but remember that wildlife too needs these nourishing fruits, so be sure
to only take what you need and spread your harvest over several plants.
Of course all of these trees and shrubs can also be grown in
the home garden if you have space– while you will miss out on the thrill of the
hunt, for the time-pressed forager having fresh ingredients for jam or fruit
pies right there in the garden is undeniably handy!
