Sloe Picking

I finally found what I was looking for! Sloe berries! Some were growing in the town's forest garden, but boy was it a fool's errand. Not only did I find myself embedded in its thorny clutches - a vicious and spiny thicket - but there was only a sparse amount of berries as a reward.

It took forever to pick a mere 300g, and I got horribly scratched up in the process, not having prepared properly with a pair of gloves. This native, Prunus spinosa (blackthorn), falls into the rose family, and has long associations with deities and witchcraft in English folklore.

This extreme picking experience left me with pulled threads and holes in my clothing and some open scratches on my hands. I even managed to leave some DNA behind. I hope there's no crime scene to investigate in the forest garden, as I could be implicated!

As expected, the bleeding scratch swelled and became warm and red overnight. My small bounty will make one jar of sloe gin, a local specialty around Xmas.

That slow sloe picking had better be worth it!