This Farming Life - Foraging at Castlefarm

With only four more of Castlefarm’s autumn herd to calve and most of our calves sold I feel like I can take a bit of a breather from the farm. Our cows are now indoors full time. They eat silage and sleep on straw.

We continue to milk them twice a day, but on Sundays milk once a day. Their milk yields have been dropping since late summer. The cows are comfortable being milked once daily and once a day milking gives us a bit of a break on Sundays.

It’s a beautiful autumnal day as I type. The sky is clear blue, and the weather is dry but cold. Russets and browns surround me. We have picked most of our apples to make apple juice.

We enjoyed a couple of kilos of hazelnuts from our orchard and our quinces were sold to The Strawberry Tree in Wicklow. But growth has practically stopped and to be honest I am looking forward to the cosy dark nights of winter.

This year in particular I have noticed the abundance of rose hips in our hedgerows. Yesterday collecting rosehips was a great excuse for a walk and this morning I am making some rosehip syrup.

Last year I bought a copy of Wild Food, a foraging manual written by Biddy White Lennon and Evan Doyle. It provides great inspiration and advice about collecting and using wild foods - according to the manual, wild rosehips are higher in Vitamin C than oranges.

I’m sure they won’t mind me sharing The Strawberry Tree rosehip syrup recipe:

Wash and chop 700g of wild rosehips. Bring to the boil in 1 litre of water, simmering for 20 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve.

Return the rosehips to the saucepan, adding another litre of water and simmer for another 20 minutes. Strain again and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Finally strain all the liquid though a muslin cloth, into a clean saucepan.

Add 600g of organic sugar and the juice of an organic lemon. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes until syrupy.

Skim off any froth and pour into sterilised kilner jars and seal.

I’m not sure how my rose hip syrup will turn out. As it happens I must not have been picking for long enough, so have had to halve the recipe.

But flicking through Wild Food I see a section on wild crab apple and might just take a walk this afternoon to see if there are any left in the hedgerows.
 

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