Tuesday 1 October 2013

Foraging again

Inspired by the success of the Hedgerow Jelly I made the other day, I have been out foraging again. When I went out for the Blackberries and Elderberries I saw a place where there are huge quantities of Rosehips, so I decided to go back and get some of them.


The place in question is a small country lane between Fleet and the little village of Dogmersfield. If you take the time to examine it, the countryside here is really beautiful, despite being very close to the M3 motorway and the railway line from Basingstoke to London!


My earmarked Rosehip patch is just near the bridge from which I took the photo above. There are huge quantities of fruit in the hedges here:






These things are not easy to pick - just look at those thorns! [Note to self - next time, wear your gardening gloves.] Fortunately, because the fruit is so plentiful, you don't have to reach up very high to get them, and it's perfectly possible to just walk along the lane gathering them at chest level.

In the same area there are loads of lovely Blackberries too:




I didn't want any Blackberries this time, but next year I may well go back to this place if I decide to make more Hedgerow Jelly.

Sloes are also available there in great profusion. I hadn't really intended to pick any, but I just couldn't resist, and I came back with about 450 grams of them. The main target harvest however was the Rosehips, and I picked about 750 grams of them:


I'll write about how I used these fruits in a day or two, but let me just finish this post with a close-up of one of them, to show you just how attractive they are:



4 comments:

  1. I must admit that foraging is something I rarely do. It looks as though you've found a gem of a place there though, lots of things in just one area for the taking. I'm looking forward to hearing what you did with them now.

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  2. I hope that you left plenty for the birds :)

    WE forage on the plot as we have blackberries and elder.

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    1. I certainly did. They can have the hgh-up ones that I couldn't reach! :) Seriously, the 750g that I picked was a "tiny drop in the ocean" compared with how many there were.

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  3. Loving those blackberries Mark. They look delish!

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