Tag Archives: Redcurrant

The return of the waxwings

Most of the thrushes were gone today, replaced by a flock of about 120 waxwings (sidensvans), picking up from where the thrushes left off!
The first two videos show waxwings eating apples opened up by fieldfares and blackbirds yesterday and also eating guelder rose (krossved) berries, so far not touching the elderberries (svarthyll).

Earlier in the day, the waxwings were hunting insects on birch trees and occasionally high into the air in pursuit of insects:

…and the morning after, they had discovered the yew berries!

…and on unharvested redcurrants (rips)….with a fieldfare (gråtrost) and brambling (bjørkefink) at the end of the video!

Leather

I neither use sugar nor do I have a freezer. My favourite way of preserving fruit is drying and the quickest way of drying fruit in an oven is by making fruit leather…simply boil the fruit to sterilise and mashing as you boil, then pour into an oven tray and dry for a few hours at about 40C!
Have just finished a batch of redcurrants (rips) and raspberries (bringebær). The raspberries were both wild red raspberries, an old Norwegian yellow (gulbringebær) and a cultivar “White Russian”

See last year’s blog on raspberry / bilberry leather here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=13187

12th August Added pictures of leather made from cloudberries, bilberries and wild raspberries!

Drying berries

A bit of a glut of fruit in my garden. I’ve therefore been drying raspberries and currants :)  At the bottom are the dried fruit, also bilberries and saskatoons!

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The red variety is a tasty disease resistent variety we found escaped from the old Malvik railway station garden below the house. There are two yellow varieties, one just received as gulbringebær (yellow raspberry), the lighter coloured one that is almost white when unripe is called “White Russian”
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The red variety is a tasty disease resistent variety we found escaped from the old Malvik railway station garden below the house. There are two yellow varieties, one just received as gulbringebær (yellow raspberry), the lighter coloured one that is almost white when unripe is called “White Russian”

 

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Redcurrants / rips
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Redcurrants / rips