Harriet Bennett
Why hedgerow berries earn their place in the larder
There is a particular joy in filling a preserving pan with fruit you picked yourself, from a hedge you walk past every week. Across the British countryside, late summer and early autumn offer a generous run of blackberries, elderberries, sloes and rowan, and a modest kitchen can turn them into jams, jellies and cordials that see you through to spring. Nothing about it requires a smallholding, though if you keep a few acres you will find hedgerows along your boundaries are already doing the work for you. What matters is doing it properly: sterilising your jars, testing your setting point, and labelling every batch so that a good year can be repeated.
Foraging well: timing, picking and the law
Quality in the jar begins in the hedge. Pick on a dry day, once the dew has lifted; wet fruit dilutes the pectin and invites mould. Blackberries are at their best from late August through October, and the sweetest are often the ones slightly higher up, out of reach of dogs and dust. Elderberries should be picked when the whole head droops under the weight of dark purple-black berries — if they are still red or green, leave them be.
In England and Wales you may pick fruit, leaves, flowers and fungi from wild plants for personal use on land you have lawful access to, but you must not dig up plants, and you should never pick on protected sites or where a byelaw forbids it. Scotland has its own access rules. Commercial picking needs the landowner's permission. Beyond the law, use your manners: take a share and leave plenty for the birds, avoid verges beside busy roads or sprayed field edges, and wash everything before it goes in the pan.
Sterilising jars and lids without fail
This is the step people skip, and it is the reason jam grows a furry collar by November. Wash your jars in hot soapy water, rinse well, then stand them upside down on a baking tray and put them in an oven at 140°C (130°C fan) for twenty minutes. A hot dishwasher cycle works too, provided you fill the jars while they are still hot.
- Lids: never put metal lids in the oven — the sealing compound degrades. Simmer them in a pan of water for ten minutes instead.
- Fill hot: pour preserves into hot jars, leaving about 1cm of headspace.
- Seal at once: screw the lid down firmly, then listen for the dull pop as the vacuum forms.
Blackberry jam: the simplest hedgerow preserve
Blackberries are low in pectin, so they need help. To every 1kg of fruit, add the juice of one lemon and either 800g of sugar for a soft, spoonable set or 1kg for something firmer. A handful of unripe berries, or a chopped cooking apple, will boost the set further.
Warm the fruit and lemon juice gently, then add the sugar and stir until it has fully dissolved — no gritty scrape on the bottom of the pan. Only then bring it to a hard, rolling boil. The setting point is 104.5°C on a jam thermometer, but trust the saucer test as well. Keep a saucer in the freezer, drop a teaspoon of jam onto it, wait a minute, and push it with your finger. If it wrinkles and holds rather than running, it is ready. Take the pan off the heat while you test, and skim off the scum before potting. A small knob of butter stirred in at the end helps disperse it.
Elderberry cordial: warmth for the winter months
Elderberries need respect. Raw berries, and any stray green ones or stems, can cause nausea, so strip the berries from the stalks with a fork and cook them thoroughly. For a good batch, take 1kg of berries, 1.2kg of sugar, 1.2 litres of water, 30g of citric acid (or the juice and zest of two lemons), and a few cloves, a cinnamon stick or a thumb of ginger if you like.
Simmer the berries in the water with the spices for twenty to thirty minutes, mashing them now and then. Strain through a muslin-lined sieve and leave it to drip overnight — squeezing gives you more liquid but a cloudier cordial. Warm the strained liquid with the sugar and citric acid until dissolved, then bottle hot in sterilised bottles. Unopened, it keeps six to twelve months in a cool cupboard; once opened, keep it in the fridge and use within a few weeks. A spoonful in hot water is a fine thing on a raw February evening.
Labelling, storing and using your batches
Write a label for every jar and bottle: contents, date, batch number, where the fruit came from, how much sugar you used, and whether the set was soft or firm. Pectin and ripeness vary wildly from year to year, and a note made in September will save you guessing the following autumn.
- Store in a cool, dark, dry place — a north-facing cupboard or a pantry shelf, away from the warmth of the range.
- Jam will keep a year or more; cordial six to twelve months unopened.
- Use the jam on scones, swirled through yoghurt, or spooned into a traybake; the cordial lengthened with hot water, or fizzed up with soda and a slice of orange.
Do this for a season or two and you will build a shelf that tells the story of your hedgerows — one labelled jar at a time.
