Vocal Voices

The dog and I have been out for a tromp across the moors this morning (to get away from screeching girls) to look for sloes.

The trees up there are usually dripping with them at this time of the year but I couldn't find a single one. My friend went about a week ago and said she couldn't find any but I thought maybe she hadn't looked in the right places but she is right - not a sausage!

Good job I have plenty of damsons this year for damson gin then.

I haven't seen any sloes for years.

Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places.

Plenty of damsons, though.

Oh how funny, 'cos mostly the bushes and trees are heaving this year!! Tons of blackberries about, for example.........Maybe it hasn't been the right conditions for sloes?

I've not seen any either but, like Kaz said, there are blackberries everywhere (Joe and I have just been feasting on them) and we did really well for bilberries this year too.

Is it an old wives' tale that sloes need to be picked after a frost, same as rosehips?

Can't say that I have noticed many sloes about, but the rosehips are a lot smaller. Last year they were big and fat and...... tasteless! I was going to make rosehip wine but didn't bother. The blackberries were also smaller this year, but plentiful, and they ripened very early and are still going strong.

I guess it is down to the summer we have had.

Errr what's a sloe look like? Just in case I can help

BIg fat purple berries, in clusters - they grow on shrub like trees........

Sloes grow on a blackthorn bush/tree and as Kaz said, they are fat little purple berries. You know its a sloe by biting into it - they are so sharp they make your mouth dry!!

We have loads of blackthorn around us but sadly they are lacking in berries (although my friend rang about half an hour ago - she has found two trees absolutely laden with them, completely surrounded by a mass of other blackthorns with no berries on at all. How odd. I will be venturing that way after work tomorrow.

I never wait until after a frost WM - I always pick them in October. Leave it too late and the birds will have had them all. I bring them home, wash them and then shove them in the freezer in batches. When they defrost their skins burst, which saves me having to prick them before putting them in gin.

Oddly the hawthorn bushes are dripping in red berries so I may pick some of then tomorrow and make a jelly as I have loads of cooking apples.

There are a few rosehips around but as WM says, they are pretty small and insipid looking. I will leave them a while longer and see if they grow and then I might have a go at some rosehip syrup.