View Basket
Recover Basket
Island Seasons
November 2007
Autumn is now here! It’s not time to mourn summer or moan about the weather – pull on your wellies and a jumper and get out into the woods. The leaves look great this year, so enjoy them while they’re still on the trees! Brighstone and Parkhurst are both great woods to explore, and both have good access if you’re pushing a pram or are less mobile.
This is a bumper year for tree fruit and you will crunch over acorns and beech masts as you walk along the tracks. You can gather conkers for warfare and sweet chestnuts for roasting and making stuffing.
We're out and about
We’ll be at the Wight Christmas Experience on 1st and 2nd December at the Riverside Centre, Newport and at the Ventnor Christmas fair on 8th December. Come along and say ‘hello’ – we’ll be serving mince pies and mulled wine and selling small Christmas gifts from all of your favourite Island food producers. We’ll also be taking orders for Christmas meats.
In the hedgerows
Now is the time to make sloe gin ready for Christmas. Sloes are supposed to be picked after the first frosts so that the skins are broken, but as we’re unlikely to have much of a frost anytime soon, pick them now and pop them in the freezer instead. I make my sloe gin in 1 litre preserving jars (from Hursts), which is a great size for a standard 75cl bottle of gin. Use the highest strength (abv) gin you can find, but don’t worry about fancy brands. Half fill the jar with the defrosted sloes, and add about 100-120g caster sugar. Top up with the gin. That’s pretty much it! You can add almond essence or cloves, but its not really necessary. Agitate daily for 2 weeks to ensure the sugar dissolves and the sloe juices mix with the gin. Turn the jar once a week for a further 4-6 weeks, the strain the liquid through a muslin bag (from Hursts) back into your original gin bottle. The gin can be drunk straight away, or kept (fine chance!). You can also make sloe vodka in the same way, or damson gin if you’re lucky enough to have some damsons.