Country matters: Harvest bounty from the wild

Blackberry brambles, within reach of human hands, make for easier picking and, for a time now, the fruit has been eagerly sampled by passers-by. The autumn floor of a woodland is a mass of fungi, some species having emerged from a mysterious world. These are of varied hues and skin blemishes, to be observed with interest but not to be foraged. Picking for the pot is from field corners at dewy dawns and evenings when milk-white buttons pop up on a turn, in places already scanned.

There is a bountiful mushroom harvest this year but these edible fruits of the earth are not sought out by everybody. Farm business proceeds as usual. Cattle will lie down on them and tractors, trailers and quads will pass over.

Orchard and wild fruit crops are magnificent after the rain and heat in one of the most abundant harvests on record. It is a time for celebration.

The shiny elderberries contrast with the green crab boughs bending like bunches of grapes. Sloes are bitter to taste and heavy in the thorns but thoughts of jams and cordials, and the famous gin, stimulate gathering.

The ripened elder fruit pleads to be harvested - think of the high vitamin C content. Enthusiasts will have picked the earlier doilies of lace for summer sparkling drinks and now the lush berries await the dedicated country wine maker. Usually, though, they are left for birds or gradually fall to mammal and insect life on the ground beneath.

As the year falls the elder will die back and take on the wretched appearance and smell that trigger unease at the legend that this was the hanging tree of Judas. This is a plant of mystery and superstition, swinging between distaste and usefulness; the mature, cut-back wood is a sturdy basis for hedging.

Blackberries have been in tandem with elder, with varieties and micro-species bearing heavy loads. Gather ye berries while ye may as, at month end, the time of Michaelmas, folklore says the devil travels by night urinating on them, making them hard and bitter. This is, in reality, caused by a flash fly which dribbles saliva on the fruit, sucking up the juice.

Blackberry picking was once an important family activity and, for youngsters, a ready cash crop. The fruit of one's labours could be sold at collection shops designated by jam manufacturers. Fast turnover was essential as the berries quickly softened.

The county boy Seamus Heaney felt the pangs of upset caused by delay. He and his siblings hoarded their harvest in an old bathtub only to discover, all too soon, "a rat-grey fungus gutting our cache".

"It wasn't fair that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot/ Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not."

There are many recipes for drinks and puddings to be made from the hedgerow harvest. Blackberries, elders, sloes, crab apples, rose hips can become jams, jellies and tarts in delightful mixtures.

Here's something simple: steep some blackberries in red wine overnight. Then, using a blender, leave the fruit stand for an hour to firm and serve it with a dollop of cream and/or a dash of a favourite liqueur.