October

October is upon us, a time of mists, cobwebs, fruits and berries – "mellow fruitfulness" as Keats put it. The hedgerows and trees are laden with berries, and many species will be competing to grab the fruit and either eat it now or store it for the tough winter months ahead. At Cabragh Wetlands we have a fine mature hedge, perhaps 200 or more years old, which is an invaluable habitat for exploration with visiting school groups. There within a few yards of each other you will find blackberry, spindle berries, elderberries, rosehips, haws, sloes, holly, ivy and others, all currently dripping with beautiful fruit in various stages of maturity.

There is of course a warning to be given out – many of the berries you see on trees and hedgerows are poisonous, and it is a basic rule that you do not pick and eat anything until you are absolutely sure what it is. But do not be afraid of nature's larder; our ancestors have used the fruits around them for many millennia, and it is one of the many paradoxes of our civilization that as we 'progress' and develop our food technology and convenience shopping facilities, so we are shedding the knowledge and experience of countless generations of our ancestors. With the alarming rise in food prices this year and the dire news from Wall Street and London, there seems to be a lot to be said for returning to a more simple and natural way of life, using the food around us and relying less on carbon-emitting, expensive imports from around the world.

So have a look in your garden and at the trees and hedges around you to see what might be used. Brambles are past their peak now, but there are still plenty of elderberries. They start life as softly fragrant white flowers in spring, long used to make refreshing elderflower cordial and tea, which was a partial remedy for colds and diseases of the throat. Leaves and unripe berries are poisonous, but the ripe berries are free of poison and excellent additions to blackberry pies and jam, not to mention elderberry juice and wine. Elder may be a rather unsightly tree, almost a weed given the rapidity of its growth and its ability to re-sprout from a stump, but it is home to a very large number of insects, perhaps second only to the oak as a habitat.

Small, sour crab apples are abundant this year; it is a great orchard tree for pollinating normal cooking and eating apples, and crab apples make excellent jellies for use with gamey meats, like venison, pheasant and rabbit. Go out and collect rowan berries (mountain ash), which used to be given to chickens, pigs and cows. Wild birds love them, and they are a feast for the eyes as they dangle in large bright red clusters. As rich in Vitamin C as the orange, rowans also can be turned into a gourmet jelly to accompany game dishes. Rose hips are even richer in Vitamin C than the orange, and also make excellent jams, jellies and teas.

A favourite autumn berry is on the spindle tree, which is a modest summer plant, but comes into its own at this time of year when the seed capsules redden. The birds wait until the berry splits open to reveal up to four orange seeds hanging on individual strings. Do not try cooking with spindle berries – they are poisonous. The tree gets its name from our ancestors who used the wood to make spindles for spinning yarn on their spinning-wheels. Perhaps we need to make more use of the wonders that nature provides.