A hedgerow harvest worth the scratches

By the time the leaves start turning, our hedgerows are quietly loaded. Blackthorn twigs bend under the weight of sloes, and dog rose branches are strung with scarlet hips. Nothing about gathering them is comfortable: blackthorn is armed with thorns that seem to reach for you, and rosehips sit behind hooked prickles that scratch forearms through sleeves. Yet a couple of hours on a cold, bright October morning can fill a basket with fruit that will flavour gin, syrup and jelly right through to spring. That trade — a few scratches for a store cupboard full of colour — is one of the best bargains British woodland edges have to offer.

The first frost rule for sloes

Sloes are the fruit of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), that dark, spiny shrub that whitens hedges with blossom in March and turns dusty blue-black in autumn. They look like small damsons with a powdery bloom on the skin. Bite one in September and your mouth will pucker for an hour: raw sloes are fiercely tannic and sour.

The old advice is to wait until the first frosts, which soften the skins and mellow some of that astringency. There is truth in it, but frost is unreliable in much of the UK and sloes left too long on the bush shrivel or fall. Practical approach:

• Start checking hedges from early October, tasting one berry from a few different bushes — flavour varies hugely from plant to plant.
• Pick when the fruit is fully coloured, slightly yielding, and comes away with a gentle twist.
• If frost has not arrived, pick anyway and freeze the sloes overnight at home. Freezing splits the skins, which is exactly what you want for gin.
• Choose bushes away from busy road verges and spray drift, and pick from the outer branches where the fruit is cleanest.

A good bush can give you a kilogram in twenty minutes. Leave the rest.

Rosehips: pick before they soften

Rosehips are the swollen seed pods of wild roses — the dog rose (Rosa canina) along most hedges, and the fat, apple-scented hips of Rosa rugosa on coastal paths and scrub. They ripen from orange to deep red through September and October and are one of the richest natural sources of vitamin C in the British landscape.

Here is the important difference from sloes: frost is not your friend with rosehips. Vitamin C degrades as the hips are damaged by cold and go soft, and mushy hips are fiddly to handle. Gather them firm and glossy, usually late September into October, before the first hard frost. They should feel like small, taut tomatoes and detach with a clean snap.

Once home, tip them into a single layer and use them within a day or two, or freeze them whole. Do not leave them sweating in a plastic bag — they mould fast.

Turning the harvest into syrup and gin

The two great uses for this harvest are slow infusions and syrups, both forgiving and both generous.

• Sloe gin: fill a clean jar a third full with sloes, add roughly 250g of sugar and top up with 70cl of gin. Shake daily for a week, then weekly for three months, and strain. The colour moves from pale pink to deep ruby as it matures.
• Sloe syrup: simmer 1kg of sloes with 1 litre of water for 30 minutes, mash, strain through muslin overnight, then add 500g of sugar per litre of juice and reduce gently. Splendid over porridge or stirred into hot water for a cough-soothing drink.
• Rosehip syrup: simmer 1kg of roughly chopped hips in 1.5 litres of water for 20 minutes, strain, repeat with the pulp and fresh water, then combine the juices with 400g of sugar per litre and boil until slightly thickened. Drizzle over yoghurt or use as a winter tonic.
• Sloe and apple jelly: a set of windfall apples gives pectin so a sloe jelly firms up reliably. A handful of hips added to the pan brings colour and a tart edge.

Always strain rosehip syrup properly through fine muslin or a jelly bag. The fine hairs inside the hips are the original itching powder, and you do not want them in your syrup.

Foraging lightly, for the wildlife's sake

A hedgerow is not a shop. Sloes and hips are winter larder for redwings, fieldfares, blackbirds, thrushes, mice and voles. Blackthorn thickets are prime nesting and shelter habitat, and dormice use them as corridors. Pick with restraint:

• Take no more than a third of the fruit from any one bush, and only from the parts you can reach safely.
• Never break or saw branches to reach fruit. Use a stick to hook high limbs, or simply leave them.
• Leave the hedgerow's shape intact — no trampling through the base of a hedge, where birds nest and small mammals run.
• Check local rules before you start. Picking fruit for personal use is generally allowed on public rights of way, but collecting is restricted on many nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.

Planting a blackthorn or wild rose in your own boundary is the best long-term return you can give a hedgerow.

Kit, and a bit of common sense

Dress for the job: thornproof gloves, long sleeves, sturdy boots and eye protection if you are pushing into dense blackthorn. A walking stick and a wire hook spare your hands. Carry fruit in a basket, a paper bag or a rigid tub rather than a plastic bag, which crushes the crop and traps moisture. Take secateurs for cutting a few rosehip clusters with the stalk, but only where the plant is your own or cutting is permitted. Clean and scratch-proof your hands afterwards, and treat any thorn wound properly — blackthorn punctures are a classic source of infection.

Get the timing right, pick modestly, and you will have syrup in the cupboard, gin on the shelf, and a hedge still heavy with fruit for everything else that depends on it.