Fruit Picking

Believe it or not we had some sunshine in London this weekend. It has, or course, now gone but it was good whilst it lasted. I decided to take advantage of the good weather on Saturday by going to Hewitt's Farm in Kent to pick some damsons. My 14 year old son came with me. Being 14, fruit picking is not top of his favoured activity list but even he had to admit it was nice to be out in the sunshine. Unfortunately, it appears that "it has not been a good year for plums" and damsons, therefore, were few and far between.

We did however manage to pick some runner beans and pick up (from the farm shop) some cooking plums (of which more to come in the next post) and some baby squashes.

If plums were in short supply, the same could not be said of apples. There were row upon row of apple trees all heavily laden with fruit. Unfortunately this week is a busy week for me and I knew that the apples were likely to go to waste if I picked them as I will not have the time to cook or store them. However, I will keep them in mind for a few weekends' time.

In addition to the cultivated fruit and veg on the farm the hedgerows were full of various wild fruiting plants such as elderberries, sloes and rosehips.

However, again, commitments this week meant that I was unlikely to find the time to research and make something from any of these things - even assuming you were allowed to pick them and they were for sale.

All in all it was a very enjoyable hour or so (notwithstanding constant enquiries from my son as to exactly how much longer we were going to be).

But now the sun has gone again and it is time to turn my thoughts to something autumnal to do with the plums.