Not content with eating stuff from my garden, it was time to invade other people’s. We went apple picking and filled up not one, not two, but four crates of Bramley and Blenheim Orange varieties (the latter being pure taste win). Also, sloes were ready in the hedgerow, so we filled up a basket with those and shredded my arm on the thorns. The plan is to make, among other things, Apple Wine and Sloe Gin (of dubiously high alcohol content), as well as having enough apples for the next few weeks. All of this was free:
The purple things are sloes? Cool.
Yup. Otherwise known as the Blackthorn.
Where do you find these lovely orchards to invade (for free)?
We have quite a bit of sloes in the woods and hedgerows behind our house here in Hertfordshire – but I like them apples of yours.
I also have free labour in the form of nimble fingered children. The trick would be getting them to put the fruit in the baskets rather than just shoving it in their gobs.
Cheers,
Eric
Well actually this was just a couple of large trees, not an orchard! It’s been a bumper crop for fruits and berries this year, so even though we took four boxes of fruit, it barely made an impact on the trees.
Always befriend someone with an apple tree, that’s my advice. Then you can send the children in – they’re probably quite useful at climbing branches, I imagine.
How are you going to store those apples? My apples always go yucky after a week or so.
As long as you keep them separate (diseases spread quickly if the skins are touching), and in a cool dark place, they should be fine. Some we’re wrapping in newspaper just to keep them safe.
Ugh. You’re making sloe gin. I officially hate you. I gave my best-ever stash of sloes to my mother, who then didn’t even use them. More fool me.
Thankfully, Gordon’s make a sloe version of their finest, which will have to do.
I’m going to sulk in a corner now. A sloe-less corner. Although with three apple trees & a pear tree, there’s a hell of a lot of fruit in it…