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Author Topic: Are these sloe berries?  (Read 7569 times)

DenisCooper

  • Joined May 2016
Are these sloe berries?
« on: September 25, 2016, 11:49:41 am »
Hi, just walking round on of my fields and stumbled across these.....are they sloes?


DenisCooper

  • Joined May 2016
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2016, 11:53:18 am »
a few more photos

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2016, 12:03:52 pm »
They certainly look like sloes.  About the size of a medium-sized grape?
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

BrimwoodFarm

  • Joined May 2016
    • Brimwood Farm
    • Facebook
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2016, 12:28:37 pm »
They look like a wild plum to me - a bullace. Though sloes are also part of the prunus family they're the fruit of blackthorn - the twigs are extremely spiky! I have loads of these bullaces on my land - they won't kill you but they're pretty sour.

DenisCooper

  • Joined May 2016
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2016, 01:48:16 pm »
Hi,

yes they are about the size of a medium size grape. the branches have really long hard sharp spikes on them too...

BrimwoodFarm

  • Joined May 2016
    • Brimwood Farm
    • Facebook
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2016, 02:21:06 pm »
I think we need more opinions then! I was fairly but now, from your description, they could be sloes after all. I'd load up on the gin.....just in case.  :fc:

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2016, 02:28:49 pm »
You could try eating one.  A bullace would be nice ;)
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Greenerlife

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Leafy Surrey
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2016, 03:32:57 pm »
I would say they are definitely sloes.  Get picking, and get the gin in!

Sbom

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Staffordshire
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2016, 04:15:06 pm »
If the bush is spikey they are sloes, if not bullaces. Matters not as they both can be used the same ways...yummy vodka  jelly jam,, gin etc

Get picking!

DenisCooper

  • Joined May 2016
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2016, 05:42:29 pm »
excellent...a bottle of gin and a bottle of vodka is deserved i think :)....

devonlady

  • Joined Aug 2014
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #10 on: September 26, 2016, 08:11:32 am »
You may be better to wait a few weeks before picking, they will yield more juice after the first frosts. One of my nephews favourite spreads for his toast is sloe jelly.

pharnorth

  • Joined Nov 2013
  • Cambridgeshire
Re: Are these sloe berries?
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2016, 02:36:12 am »
It is what goes in my sloe gin. I waited for after the first frost three years running and by the time we had a frost the birds had eaten them all. Then someone told me it was just as effective to pick them early October and put them in the freezer for a few hours before pricking the skins.  The frost helps disrupt the cells.

 

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