howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
come around again, does everyone remember being taken out by their mum to pick these?
coming home with fingers torn to shreds and then being force fed blackberry and apple pie for the next month, happy days.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Very badly off, it is we are, for Elderberries this year. So I am reliably informed.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
so tom no home made elderberry wine this year then.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
I remember blackberry picking as a kid - 1 pound of blackberries and 2 pounds of insects
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
We used to go out - father borrowed a friend's car, and my parents, grandma and myself drove out into the Lincolnshire Wolds to a favourite place near Louth each year where a woodland had been cut down and brambles covered most of the areas.
We always took 6 buckets in the car boot, and my grandma made enough blackberry and apple jelly (seedless) to last all the winter !! Wonderful. Whenever my cousins visited they always asked for 'black jam' with mother's home made bread ! Great days. We took a picnic lunch with us.
I have made a lot of jam since being in Kent, but nowhere near what my grandma made !! (Mind you we did eat more jam then, and of course not forgetting the pies - which I still make)
I have also made blackberry with elderberry jelly, lovely flavour (but don't eat elderberries raw ever !)
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Blackberries and other berries, if cultured on plots, could become a major export revenue for Kent. They contain heaps of vitamins.
Guest 641- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,335
By strange coincidence I have just picked another half pound of blackberries from the back garden this morning, lovely on top of my cereal, washed first or I'll end up with a meaty crunch
When I was young we used to cycle out to Chipstead Valley as a whole family and come back with enough blackberries to feed us for months, my Mum used to make loads of blackberry and apple sponge, as there was no such thing as a freezer so we gorged ourselves in short shrift
the pantry was jam packed with jars of every description. There was a bomb site next to the barracks behind our house and gangs of us would forage for hours eating more than we picked
Great memories.
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
So much fruit is available here, we always have fresh fruit, and nuts, on our cereals in the morning. As Alex says, berries are particularly good for you !
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
I have great memories of my Nan and Grandad collecting wild fruits for wine making and baking. Grandad retired early from the mines with chronic asthma and they had to make a living to feed themselves and 5 children. They kept huge sheds for hens, using everything, eggs, the bird and Nan even sterilised and used the feathers for the most amazing feather mattresses.
Wine was made from any surplus fruit and veg, even wheat and potatoes. As you can imagine the house had a fragrance all of its' own!
Nan was a great knitter and dressmaker, her socks were legendary.
Grandad, with the permission of local farmers, was often seen with a bag of ferrets, nets over his shoulder, dog by his side, making his way throu' the lanes. I do recall a few game birds hanging in the old Anderson Shelter, perhaps a gift from the farmer?
How lucky was I.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
Lesley that is such an idyllic picture you have painted.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Just for you Lesley...
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elccIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 717- Registered: 16 Jun 2011
- Posts: 468
I have a secret place in Dover where there are many blackberry bushes that no one seems to have found yet...or be bothered to walk that far. I have been here the past three years and the quantity I get keeps my porridges nice and tasty. All I'll say is its all up hill to get there....
Kath..lovely story, similar memories of family 'picking' outings!
Keeps politics to myself
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
Thank you Tom, very evocative.
Jeane, I wish I had taken more notice of Nan and Grandad ( both Somerset born and bred) as their knowledge of the countryside was amazing. I think Nan would have been called a witch in the middle ages! I recall the smell of freshly baked bread, warming stews, cinder toffee and taffy in huge trays waiting to be bashed with a hammer into mouth sized pieces. Jars of preserved fruit, often with a splash of Nans fruit bandy for extra flavour.
Boxing day was the family gathering, we used doors balanced across chairs, padded with quilts so that we grandchildren could reach a table groaning with the weight of delicious home baked fayre.
The highlight of the day was watching Grandad crunch through pickled onions with his one and only front tooth!!
The most important and precious thing they gave me was time, I could not have asked for a better childhood, to love and be loved is priceless.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
Indeed Lesley it is priceless. Such treasured memories.
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
Lovely memories Lesley, our grandparents were special people from a special generation. My grandmother could make anything out of discarded or outgrown clothes or remnants, trained as a tailor's cutter and was always sewing at her machine. Grandad (boot and shoe maker) after he retired worked in his shed mending family footwear and tending his garden.
My mother was a hairdresser and was always being asked (by relatives and visitors!) just to do a little hair trim. You can't escape if you've got a skill!
Both were good cooks too, grandma was best at pastries and mother at cakes and bread. Grandma usually made a bottle of Advocaat for Christmas, putting washed eggs in their shells in a bowl covered with lemon juice, for a few days until shells dissolved, then all strained, and other things added like the brandy or rum and honey.
The calcium made the liqueur especially creamy and thick.
Ah, memories ! I have written a lot of memories down, as I think they should not be forgotten.
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
# 13.....Just finished stringing up our onion crop.....it made me remember all the things
our grand parents had to do to keep the family fed and clothed.
Both grand parents and my mother took us hop picking to add to the `coffers``for
winter.
The grand parents we were fortunate to have are not around anymore..........
Guest 756- Registered: 6 Jun 2012
- Posts: 727
My Grandaughter Molly, just three and three quarters, is facinated by flora and fauna, living on a farm gives her many acres to explore. She can identify many herbs and wild flowers already and is now moving on to creepy crawlies, much to her mothers dismay. You would be amazed at what lives in a cow pat!!!!
Back to berries, there does seem to be an abundace of Hawthorn berries this year, not so many sloes or hazelnuts on my usual walks. The beautiful spindle berries are just bursting from their pink casing exposing vibrant orange berries ( non edible Brian), Autumn is fast approaching!
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
I believe that spindle trees are a sign of an ancient trackway/footpath, there are a lot of these trees around Tilmanstone.
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
" It is an ancient woodland indicator, and also indicates an ancient hedge when present."
http://www.hainaultforest.co.uk/5Spindle.htmIgnorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 774- Registered: 1 Oct 2012
- Posts: 498
We got a great crop frm Samphire Hoe a few weeks back. Made a lovely crumble...
"If it ain't broke, fix it til it is."
