Why hedgerows are worth knowing

A British hedgerow is one of the richest larders in the countryside. In a single afternoon's walk you might pass blackberries, sloes, haws, rosehips and elderberries, all within a few hundred yards of one another. For wildlife these fruits are winter fuel; for a careful forager they are free, seasonal and genuinely delicious.

But berries demand respect. A handful of species are seriously poisonous, and a few of those look temptingly like the safe ones. The rule that has kept foragers out of trouble for generations is simple: if you are not certain, leave it alone. Identification is a skill built over seasons, not a guess made on a single afternoon.

A berry for every month

Hedgerow fruiting runs from midsummer into the depths of winter, and knowing what to expect when saves a lot of wasted walking.

• June to August — wild strawberries and raspberries in the hedgebanks, the first blackberries ripening in sunny spots, elderflowers turning to hard green berries.
• August to September — elderberries at their peak, blackberries in earnest, rowan on the higher ground, sea buckthorn along the coast.
• September to October — haws and rosehips, damsons left over from old plantings, the best of the rowan crop.
• October to December — sloes after the first frosts, the last hips, and ivy berries that are best left for the birds.

Weather shifts these dates by a fortnight or more either way, so treat the calendar as a guide rather than a timetable.

The straightforward ones to start with

These six are common, distinctive and well worth learning first. Even so, check every one against a good pocket field guide before it goes in your basket.

• Blackberry — trailing, thorny stems and leaves in threes or fives. The fruit is a cluster of small drupelets that comes away with the white core left behind. Ripe ones are dull black, not shiny red.
• Elderberry — drooping sprays of small, dark purple-black berries on a shrub with opposite, pinnate leaves and a distinctive foetid smell in the bark. Always cook them, and strip the berries from the stalks first.
• Sloe — the fruit of blackthorn: single, round, blue-black with a heavy grey bloom, and mouth-puckeringly sour. The bush is fiercely thorny and flowers white before the leaves appear.
• Hawthorn — deep red haws, oval and single-stoned, hanging in small clusters on a thorny shrub with deeply lobed leaves. Mealy raw, excellent cooked.
• Rosehip — smooth, oval, orange-red hips on wild dog roses. Slit them and scrape out the hairy seeds before use; those hairs are the original itching powder.
• Rowan — dense clusters of small orange-red berries on a tree with pinnate, serrated leaves. Bitter raw, but a classic jelly once cooked.

Berries to leave well alone

Some of the most handsome berries in the hedge are the ones you should never pick. Learn these as thoroughly as the edible ones — recognition works both ways.

• Yew — the red fleshy aril looks harmless and the seed inside is deadly. Found in churchyards, parks and old hedges. Do not eat any part of it.
• Woody nightshade — scrambling stems with purple, yellow-centred flowers and clusters of bright red berries that ripen from green. Poisonous.
• Black bryony — strings of glossy scarlet berries on a twining plant with heart-shaped leaves. Poisonous and often mistaken for something friendlier.
• Spindle — startling pink four-lobed capsules splitting open to reveal bright orange seeds. Beautiful, and poisonous.
• Ivy — black berries in rounded clusters, ripening in winter. Toxic to people and a vital food source for thrushes and blackbirds.
• Lords-and-ladies — a spike of orange-red berries in late summer, often in damp shade. Poisonous.

If you cannot tell a berry apart from one of these with complete confidence, do not put it in your mouth.

Harvesting with a light touch

Take only what you will actually use, and never strip a bush bare. A good habit is to leave at least two-thirds of the fruit on every plant you visit — that is the share belonging to the fieldfares, redwings and dormice that depend on it through the winter.

On private land you need the landowner's permission. Along a public footpath you may pick wild fruit for your own use, but the right of way is a route, not a licence to wander into the field beyond. Avoid verges beside busy roads: exhaust residue and drift from sprays are not worth the risk. And never uproot, snap branches or drag a hedge about to reach a high cluster — use secateurs or your fingers, and leave the structure intact.

Practical kit and simple uses

A shallow basket or a rigid tub keeps fruit from crushing; plastic bags turn a morning's picking into jam before you get home. Take a pair of gardening gloves for brambles and blackthorn, a small pair of scissors, and a field guide you actually trust.

Wash everything when you get back, and cook anything you are not eating straight away. Elderberries, sloes, haws and rowan all improve enormously with heat: elderberry cordial, sloe gin steeped for a year, rosehip syrup, hawthorn ketchup, rowan jelly and endless blackberry jam. Start with small quantities, taste a little the first time, and build your confidence berry by berry. That is how every good forager learned.