Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: sclarke624 on September 02, 2009, 00:03

Title: sloes
Post by: sclarke624 on September 02, 2009, 00:03

Found two small trees, which looked the same as each other.  One had blue/purple fruits about the size of a grape but the other had black fruit same size.  Could they be sloes.  If I remember I will take a pic next time we are walking the dog over the ........opps nearly gave the secret location out there.

Title: Re: sloes
Post by: Salmo on September 02, 2009, 10:07

Sloes usually have a blue bloom to them, like damsons, and taste very sour indeed even when ripe. They grow on blackthorn which has lots of wicked thorns. They make good sloe gin but should not be picked for another month or so.

There are other plums and damsons that can be found wild. Some will have grown from discarded domestic plum stones. Most of them are bigger than sloes and lack the blue bloom.