Hedgerow Fruit Harvest for Vitamin C Goodness
Pick Wild Autumn Berries for Cooking and Health Benefits
Sep 21, 2009
As summer draws to a close, the bounty of autumn hedgerow fruits is revealed. Shiny, jet blackberries sparkle in the late afternoon sun on their thorny stems. Clusters of elderberries are easily within arms' reach. Eyecatching scarlet rosehips and the wild plum of the hedgerow - blue sloes - can all be easily discovered and harvested, for vitamin enriched winter tonics, meals and drinks.
Give the Kids Some Work - Berry Harvesting is Fun and Useful
Kids love to get out whilst the weather is still warm enough and berry harvesting gives them the opportunity to be doing something useful. Armed with buckets or tubs to collect their fruits, they will happily spend an hour or two berry harvesting, returning with their purple stained mouths and tongues indicative of the joys of berry picking.
Health Benefits of Hedgerow Fruits
The health benefits of wild, hedgerow fruits have been appreciated for generations but modern scientists are even now investigating medicinal uses for the fruits, for the treatment of lung disease, arthritis and Crohns disease for example. There is certainly no doubt, however, that these fruits abound with vitamins and antioxidants.
Blackberries
Of course, the blackberry is the ubiquitous autumn hedgerow fruit, loved by kids and adults alike. The straggly, thorny bushes can be found everywhere, urban or rural area, at the side of busy roads, in local parks or established abundantly in the country landscape.
Full of vitamin C, there are innumerable uses for blackberries and as the fruits are strongly flavoured they can be eaten fresh, but also make tasty jams which can be stored, or stewed and used in pies and pastry cooking, as flavouring for delicious ice cream, made into blackberry syrup for a traditional winter cold remedy, or in homemade drinks and juices.
Elderberries
Clusters of ripe elderberries are a bountiful autumn harvest and, perhaps, the easiest method of harvesting is with a sharp pair of scissors with which the stalk can be snipped.
A typical use for elderberries is to make elderberry wine or syrup, the fruit is rich in vitamins but must be cooked to bring out flavour. The fruit can also be used to make a traditional British jam or jelly, or in pies, ice cream or syrup. Elderberries are renowned worldwide for their medicinal use.
Rosehips
Rosehips can be found in gardens or in the wild and can be used for cooking or made into syrups for health benefits. Apparently, thirty ripe rosehips contain as much Vitamin C as forty oranges, so it is easy to see why the berry is so popular. Indeed, the British Government encouraged all schoolchildren to collect rosehips during World War 2 to assist in the war effort. The children would deliver their rosehips to school daily and the rosehips were then used to manufacture a Vitamin C rich syrup, to replace unobtainable citrus fruits.
Certainly the medicinal benefits of rosehips have been recognised for hundreds of years with the Vikings using them to prevent disease such as scurvy and new studies stating they are useful for medicinal purposes in the treatment of osteoarthritis and Crohns Disease.
Rosehips should not be harvested until after the first frosts, as this will ripen them. A ripe rosehip appears shrivelled on the stem and is soft to the touch..
Traditionally rosehips can be used to make rosehip tea, as a syrup or tonic which is filled with Vitamin C goodness, or in sauces, jellies and jams
Sloes
Like rosehips, the sloe is not fully ripe until after the first frost of the year. Sloe syrup is a traditional remedy for fighting off flu. However the most popular use for sloes is to combine with alcohol to make drinks such as sloe gin. As with the fruits mentioned above, sloes may well have alternative medicinal uses and are full of Vitamin C and antioxidants.
See Also: Recipes Using Rosehips
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