Crab-apple picking

Walking through Finsbury Park yesterday I noticed two beautiful crab apple trees, their leaves all shed but with the jewel like fruits still hanging in profusion. Below these small trees grey squirrels were frantically gathering the hard, crimson apples. They are perfect apples in every way but cherry sized, bullet hard and sour, you wouldn’t want to eat one no matter how seductive they look.

If you make a jelly of the fruit however, that is another matter. These pictures were taken last year, when Richard and I gathered three bowls full from his mothers tree. There were so many fruits that it took three people at least an hour to gather them in, and we still hadn’t got them all by the time we stopped. We are still eating the delicious, sweet clear amber jelly from last years crop, and this years crop will probably be gathered this weekend. The trees are native to the UK and so we can forage wild crab apples if we want, but not many people seem to know about these abundant fruits. Which is lucky for the wildlife that relies on the wild crabs bounty; when foraging in the wild I have a personal rule – whatever you are gathering NEVER take more than one third of the crop. To us it may be a delicious treat but to local fauna it is all the food they have.

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Lunchtime foraging

On the beautiful late summer walk we took recently, I suddenly noticed that it was time for a little something. We had been walking non-stop in hot sunshine for several hours, and I had been so engrossed in the beautiful hedgerows and field margins along the way that I just hadn’t noticed how hungry I was. Imagine my joy when, as I straightened up from examining some unidentified yellow flowers, the first thing that hit my eye was a beautiful wild apple tree, absolutely laden with fruits.

I must confess I have never seen a more beautiful wild apple tree, nor at a more opportune moment. Its fruits were large, firm and rosy, with a waxy feeling skin. I had always thought that wild apple trees, perhaps the result of a bird depositing a pip on the ground or a carelessly discarded apple core would only yield small sour fruit, but luckily for us this seems to be untrue.

Richard picked this one. It was juicy and a little sharp, but delicious nonetheless.

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