Ok. Come on. Own up!!!

[GrillMonkey]

Which of you has been down to my corner of north-east hampshire and nicked all the elerberries??!!?? If they're not back in soon there will be trouble!!!

I took a walk today alone the canal and scooped a whole 1/2 pound of elderberries compared with the 4 pounds I got from the same strech last year. I guess I'll have look else where. Problem is I have a small freezer and half of it is full of 5 pounds of blackberries waiting for a companion.

On the plus side I've had a busy day. I've made 6 jars of green tomato chutney, 4 jars of blackberry and ginger chutney, started my picked onions and racked off 2 gallons of wine #1, a gallon of blackberry mead and bottled 2 gallons of treacle ale! (Tom Good eat your heart out)

Anyway, to the point. Last year I made blackberry and elderberry wine and I was hoping for a nice red. What I got was a really nice rose. How do I make it a proper red? Should I leave the fruit longer or use more fruit? (last year was 2lb blackberries, 2lb elderberries for a gallon)

[NorthernWiner]

Which of you has been down to my corner of north-east hampshire and nicked all the elerberries??!!?? If there not back in soon there will be trouble!!!

Ok.... I'll 'fess up. It was me.

[GrillMonkey]

Wow, fair enough. If you're going to tavel from the States for elderberries who am I to get in your way

[billybuntus]

I've made 6 jars of green tomato chutney,

Ditto But I only made up 3 jars, its tasty enough though

Gonna make some blackberry chutney too after I've made up my blackberry wines I'll see whats spare for the chutney

I've started my blackberry wine today and I've gone all posh and chucked some heavy toast french oak in!

[fatbloke]

Tell you what GrillMonkey, 3 "nights out" this week, and I ended up back down toward Arundel for the last load of the week.

As I was driving past bushes that I've been watching ripen, and only last week were starting to look close to ready, Friday was quite a surprise.

Lots of them had pretty much been stripped. Not from people picking, but the head stalk/stem still on the bushes indicated to me that they'd been stripped by the birdies! There's still quite a few out there but often in places hard to access i.e. sides of main roads and motorways.

Seeing as how I'm in the next door county I'd suggest that you might have experienced a similar phenomena!

regards

jtfb

[hedgerow]

i am not to impressed either last year we had to stop picking the elderberries from the canal because we had to many this year the birds have butchered them before i did, but then again last year the wife and son and i were down the canal with buckets and a wheel barrow and pruners harvesting them berries when we were stopped and questioned by the local police they had never seen or heard of anyone collecting from the bushes before and we had to admit to being home made wine makers caught red handed , very red handed

[spritzer]

Aye...
It seems the birds round here, are eating the chuffing berries, before they are even ripe

I have more bushes to harvest from this year, but there seems less to harvest

Anyway.... GrillMonkey, or Billy ... whats your green tomato chutney recipe ??
Not so much sunshine here
Too many green tomatoes

Ta
Carole

[NorthernWiner]

Anyway.... GrillMonkey, or Billy ... whats your green tomato chutney recipe ??
Not so much sunshine here
Too many green tomatoes

Same here. I have lots of green tomatoes sitting on the vine right now.

Green tomato chutney sounds great.

[GrillMonkey]

I used this one below, initial taste was good but I'll let it mature for a few months before tucking in

http://margeland.co.uk/blog/2008/09/17/green-tomato-chutney/

[billybuntus]

Pretty much the same as my recipe I also chucked in a cinammon stick, some ginger some allspice and some sweet peppers.

Quite tasty already

[hedgerow]

i went to france in the spring , forget the booze and fags we went to a garden centre and stocked up with fruit bushes £2 each and fruit trees £3.50 each and no they were not small plants either the trees are 6 foot tallalso came back with 10 tomatoe plants each of bush and beef stake they are doing great this year