Time to spot your sloe bushes

[Jeanied]

We are coming up to the right time to spot where your nearest sloe bushes are! The blackthorn is the first hedgerow bush to break into blossom in spring with its starry white flowers - it is a relative of the cherry so you know what to look for.
Now you need to find out where you are going to head for in the autumn, preferably after the first frost, to gather your harvest for sloe gin, sloe and apple jelly, etc etc etc.

[Scottishnewbie]

anyone got a photo?

[Jeanied]

How about this? You can recognise them because they are a froth of white blossoms in an otherwise dead looking hedge!

[bearded bloke]

I seem to think Shakespear wrote about that blossom .....

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Mind you I could be confused was that regarding Blackthorn or Hawthorn

[bearded bloke]

sloe and apple jelly

Would you have a recipe for that please Jeanie

[Jeanied]

How poetic, I love that one.

However blackthorn isn't May (May is a crataegus or hawthorn which comes later)
Sloe and apple jelly - this is the recipe I used and a google search turns up several others.

[Sylvan]

We are coming up to the right time to spot where your nearest sloe bushes are.

Not for a good while yet up here Jeanie. I'd give it another month. Our sloes are slow.

(You've probably got daffodils too - haven't you? *sulk)

[Flummery]

Usually well into April here. As long as no-one spots MINE, think a spring walk to note where they grow is a great idea.

[Jeanied]

I've just seen a mixed hedge round the corner from me with white flowers - another look is needed I think!

[Sylvan]

One of our blackthorns has begun to flower.
T'other one is in a shadier situation so will be a while yet.

[ginger ninger]

Lot's and lot's of blackthorn bushes around here Jeanied...well you already know that though . I still have some in the freezer from last year, me thinks a cheap bottle of gin might be in order .

[Glutton4...]

Lot's and lot's of blackthorn bushes around here Jeanied...well you already know that though . I still have some in the freezer from last year, me thinks a cheap bottle of gin might be in order .

Ah! That's what the carrier bag is in the freezer!

[splatcat]

our damsons are flowering now, but no sign of the sloes

[Sylvan]

Ah! That's what the carrier bag is in the freezer!

I'd advise against looking inside random carrier bags in the freezer G4. We once had a bat in ours.

Our damson's nowhere near flowering but the greengage is trying to - and the cherry plum's managing very well

[chris]

I almost crashed driving to work through country lanes this morning, as I think I saw one, and stupidly turned my head around to do a double-take. Forgot there was a bend coming up

Shall double check on the way home tonight !