picking berries and things

[Mrs Ava]

Which I do on the common by my lottie, however, as I was there picking lovely blackberries, a thought occured to me.....the common is owned/looked after by the National Trust.  Should I hand myself in to the local warden or is picking fruit on NT land okay???  :-\

[Mrs Ava]

[Pixie]

Dunno - My Nan and Grandad used to drag me to Saltram House (nr Plymouth)which is NT with my pink beach bucket and pick loads of blackberries etc and then blame me if anyone said anything!  ::)

I have to add that I was little and I don't even own a pink bucket anymore. But you could always blame the kids!

Sam

[Spurdie]

EJ, when we are out on a walk, we often stop to pick a few raspberries, wild strawberries, bilberries, gooseberries, geans, etc (we are very greedy!). We often meet other parents with kids, and when we tell them the berries are great, would they like some?, the parents always come up with some silly excuse as to why their kids won't eat berries from the verge/hillside. Good grief! They go into supermarkets and pay large somes for very small punnets of tasteless fruit, when they could just pick a few tasty, organic berries while getting some fresh air and exercise! Has the world gone mad!  :o

[Wicker]

Short answer - YES!

[eileen]

.......... and just think of all the chemicals that are in the fruit you buy from the shops too!!!  :o

Eileen.

[Mrs Ava]

Well, dropped the kids at school, and as I am car free today enjoyed the morning air whilst filling my bags with blackberries, rosehips, elderberries and sloes.  Gin is now underway, blackberry, damson and apple jam will be bubbling later whilst the rosehip and apple jelly runs through a muslin! Food for free rules!

[aquilegia]

whilst the rosehip and apple jelly runs through a muslin!

Aqui really must learn to read properly, read that as through a muslim. oops.

what else can you do with elderberries? I found a load the other day and might go pinch them. (I don't drink!)

[CotswoldLass]

Elderberry cordial Aqui! Yum! (don't know how to make it though!)

[derbex]

Elderberry chutney, I think you can add a few to blackeberry and apple pie.

Send them to me! -I still need a few more for the vino :D

Jeremy

[Mrs Gumboot]

I now have several bags of blackberries in the freezer after a picking spree down by the canal last Saturday. Came home with purple hands, several thorns stuck in my thumb, a nice nettle sting on my arm where I wasn't paying attention and a bag full of blackberries & assorted small spiders & snails.

Am planning to go back down tomorrow & see if there's any more ;D

Can't imagine that there'd be any consequences of picking blackberries on NT land? Surely they wouldn't be that daft. Would they?  :-\

[Spurdie]

Hi all
Your brambles must be ready early down your way - ours are tiddly wee and still green. The wild cherry trees had very few geans this year, but we managed to find one tree laden with maroon coloured geans. Black ones are the best, but maroon coloured ones are the next best (then yellow, then plain red :P)
I remember our primary school teacher once took in a bottle of her homemade rosehip syrup and we all got a taste and thought it was the greatest thing ever!
Aqui, you could also make elderberry syrup with your elderberries, but we prefer to eat them straight off the bushes (much to the annoyance of the local blackbirds).
There is a heavy crop of rowans this year, so all the local weather forecasters are predicting a hard winter. They are usually right. However, this may mean we get waxwings - they only come in really hard winters.

[Tenuse]

As long as you are not trespassing, it is not an offence to pick wild food (e.g. berries/mushrooms) on land, as long as it is growing wild and has not been cultivated (ie. you can't go an scrump apples off somebody's orchard, but picking berries growing wild in the hedgerow is fine).

Source: Blackwell's Police Manual!!

Ten x

[Spurdie]

That's another thing that really annoys me  >:( (I'm turning into Victor Meldrew) - kids stealing fruit off trees in gardens when its still green! If they had any sense whatsoever they'd wait till the fruit was ripe before they picked them, but they just pick all the unripe plums and apples and have fights with them, or throw them at folks' windows. The turnips.