This morning we went to a local wild area and picked over 4 lb of brambles. I have cooked 1lb of them for a pie (Himself is inordinately fond of bramble pie) and the other 3 lb have been gently stewed in a little water and are now dripping through my jelly bag. I'm now using the jam pan to stew up 3 lb of little wild apples from the freezer, collected last year. They are not really crabs, I suspect they're the result of a carelessly tossed core, but I've used them before from this tree. They are always a reasonable size and clean and healthy looking. Tomorrow they will go through the jelly bag and on Monday I'll finish a good batch of bramble and apple jelly. 
We also picked 7 lb of these little Mirabelle type plums. The area has been a council tree nursery many years ago and now has a surrounding hedge of various types of plum. These are washed and bagged to give me 2 lots for jam making. This little plum makes a beautiful jam.
These pink plums are also found there. We actually gathered more from the ground than the trees this year. They were all ripe and ready but last night was quite windy so many had come down but were still in excellent condition. The answer seems to be either to go in mid-August after a windy night, or to go before it gets windy with a stick and a sheet! 4.5 lb of these will allow me to make a pink plum jam and enough left for a chutney. I made wild plum and crab apple chutney a couple of years back which won me a 1st place in last year's village show. I cooked the apples and dripped them through a jelly bag as if I were going to make jelly but added the juice to the chutney mixture instead of chopped 'tame' apples.
And these little beauties are cherry plums. A bit smaller than the others but very sweet and tasty. Just over 1lb of these so I haven't decided yet what they will become. They are all now in the freezer till I decide on their fate (and get around to introducing them to it!)
9 comments:
Aren't those plums a delight! It's a battle to get to mine before the @%$^* squirrel does - so I'm on daily 'plum squeeze' duties!
See, I knew you weren't supposed to have spots on mirabelles! Lucky you, having so many fruit trees around. Looking forward to seeing what you make of them.
Aren't the colours of all of thes just gorgeous?
I can almost smell all the jam and jelly making that's going on.
That is some serious forraging. All looks wonderful.
Our brambles are not ready yet but I will be investigating hedges up the road after Festival.
What great finds. Around here the wild berries are very small and extremely sour, nothing like those beauties you picked. I just tried a plum for the first time the other day, they are excellent.
I like the "freeze and think" approach. I'm getting a bit over my blackberry jam, so it's time to think about different combinations. Your plums are beautiful. Good foraging for you!
Lots of oooh and aaahh from Matron! I just feel it is in my blood to love making jams and jellys. Will have to get down to it when I get back from hols.
Wow! all that fruit for free.....it used to be like that round here many years ago when the council requisitioned a fruit orchard and then didn't build on it for a few years - now it's a housing estate!
The just the colours of those plums make my mouth water!
It was interesting to note that when we were there we met only one other couple fruit gathering and they were only picking the blackberries. They were about our age, maybe a little older. When we were young, all the children picked blackberries! I think modern children don't recognise anything not shrink-wrapped as food? It's a shame that youngsters don't recognise wild fruits, they seem to think all berries are poinonous. My grand-daughters will know the difference!
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