Slow year for sloes?

The Sloes are looking a bit thin on the ground, maybe a sign of a slow year for them.

No show Sloe

One of the fruits of the forest that hasn't done so well this year, not around my roams anyway, is the Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). Most years the forest's Blackthorns are well laden with plump juicy fruits, Sloes; not so this year though. Many of the shrubby trees have been completely barren, some fruited poorly way too early in the season and now harbour only shrivelled fruits, whilst the occasional one that does bear good fruits are only very lightly covered. I don't think you can necessarily put this down to the climate, a lot of the fruits of the forest do appear to cycle through good and poor seasons with regularity, it's natures way; although of course you can't wholly discount climatic effects either, they may well have contributed.   

Sloe year?

It's been a patchy year for Sloes. The forest Blackthorns (Prunus spinosa) are either nearly/completely bare or have the best sized fruits I've seen in years. Maybe some sloe Vodka?

Bullace

Wandering along Dark Lane this morning with Geoff I was struck by how laden with fruit the hedgerow shrubs are, Sloe, Haw, Hazel, Oak, all are weighed down with ripening produce.  A nice surprise was to find a few good sized Bullace (Prunus insititia) shrubs also well laden with fruits. It got me thinking, just imagine if as a society we embarked on a massive program of hedge laying, of creating miles of hedges. Imagine the quantities of fruits and nuts we could harvest in a good year, not to mention the creation of valuable wildlife habitats and in light of the climate crisis, the carbon sinks we'd establish. If only we thought outside of our self constructed box, nature offers simple solutions to humanities complex problems.

Sloe

The forest may be dry, though one of the streams still flowing well is Red Rise Brook and as a consequence the fruits on stream side shrubs a filling out nicely.

Autumn fruits

It'll soon be Mabon and the period of second harvest, the fruit/berry harvest. The fruiting shrubs of the forest, the Crab Apples, the Hawthorns and Blackthorns all see their fruits swelling, with the potential of good crops. For me, Blackthorn is my main focus, every year I make a litre or two of Sloe gin/vodka, and this years crop is looking good, with good sized fruits. It's exiting, I look forward to this time of year and its foraging potential.

Though now when foraging or using wild foods, I find there's an increasing conflict of ideas and traditions. When to pick, how to process and of course the myriad of old folk lore around both, most of which is based in sound observations and understanding, although I feel climate change now challenges some of the old sayings and ways. Take Blackberries for instance, traditional folklore says you can't pick them after a certain date in September (moveable depending on your geography nationally) as they become the 'devils berry'. Clearly they don't, though there is a chemical change around said dates which makes the blackberries unpleasant eating. It was easier to explain this to a preliterate population by associating it with the Devil rather than trying to explain chemical changes, hence the lore. But this was when seasons were reliable seasons, I think due to climatic changes and seasonal fluidity, the date is more flexible (although at some point the berries taste will change for the worst, that aspect still hold true). This year as we rapidly approach that point of chemical change, the majority of the forest Blackberries are still unripe, and will probably ripen and still be edible after the old cut off date. With Sloes they say pick them after the first frost, but again due to seasonal climatic changes we might not get a frost until after new year, by which time the sloes will all be gone, eaten by the birds. So you've got to take them earlier. The same can be said for so many other forageable resources, the old lore, which endured for centuries, now conflicts with our weather/climate reality.

I think we're going to have to adapt our folklore to reflect our current climate, and not stick so rigidly to the old lore, respect it, though adapt.