Reaping natures harvest

Just across the road from us is a small baptist chapel and alongside it, a couple of small fields, a lane and plenty of hedgerows. Pretty lucky for me. There is an abundance of ripe blackberries, hawthorn berries, blackthorn trees with a crazy amount of sloes growing along their branches and lots and lots of elderberries.

After a few trips back and forth with Miss Polly on my back we'd collected a nice heap of berries. Once home and settled, I sat down with my hedgerow book and worked out how to make the syrups and jams I so desired. The past couple of days have featured monotonous destemming  of haws and elderberries. 

All in all I made 5 jars of Apple & sloe jam, elderberry syrup, hawthorn syrup, elderberry tincture & hawthorn tincture and a bit of a mess in the kitchen! 

The elderberry syrup has already been put to test. High in vitamins a & c, with anti-inflammatory and anti viral properties, the syrup is great for treating colds and flu. Low and behold - right now I am in day three of the flu. Whilst still feeling pretty rotten I have to admit the syrup is an absolute godsend. Normally my sore throat lasts 2-3 days before developing into more. Not so this time. The syrup (which i am in this case using as a hot cordial with honey) is speeding the process along. Along with this I have been taking, echinacea dissolvable tablets and lemsip. I could be worse.

Nature doing its work. Pretty magical. 

I'll put the recipes and instructions on for all the items mentioned above in due course. But for now, it's time for another dose of hot cordial and back under the blanket for me.

Until next time, x