wild plums and apples

[emecctv]

i live near a big forest and im new to foraging and i dont know whats edible or not , is it true that all apple varieties are edible ? and i found one variety of apple thats rose blush in the inside , tasted ok when i had a nibble , does anyone know what variety it may be?
also i found 2 plum trees but they may be greengage there small plum shaped things yellow in colour bit bigger than a cherry and another i found small plum/greengage tree with dark purple fruits , also about elderberries how do i 100% know whether there edible, i want to be able to properly identify them , and i dont want to end up killing myself eating poisonous berries!
will put photos tomorrow

[snapdragon]

hello cctv(?!?) welcome in

where abouts are you ? I've just finished preserving the plums from my (wild) cherry plum tree they're yellow when ripe and fall shortly afterwards.
elderberries are edible - just so long as you know they are elderberries

sounds like you need a good plant book

[that_sarah_girl]

I saw some wild plums/damsons (i think) while walking home from work a different way yesterday. Is there anything else that looks like plums? or can I be pretty sure that's what they are?

Sorry if that's a stupid question, I'm very new to forraging!

[MKG]

Apples, plums and certainly elderberries are all pretty easy. A couple of minutes' use of Google images will probably instil a degree of confidence in identification.

Having said that, not all apples are useful in the same way as Granny Smiths - crab apples will turn your face inside out (but are great to add to ciders and wines). Similarly, a sloe is a plum - but don't bite into one, small though it is, with the anticipation of a gorgeous mouthful of plummy sweetness. They're like crab apples, only worse.

Mike

[that_sarah_girl]

thanks for the warning!
If they do turn out to be sloes I might attempt some sloe gin or something rather than eating fresh or baking

[DrewShiel]

Sloes shouldn't be too hard to identify - essentially, they're small, and if you go to pick one and feel like you've been stabbed in the arm, that's a sloe tree. They're also called blackthorn, at least in Ireland, and have great spiky thorns up to about 3cm long, which you could nearly use as panel pins.

They're used a lot, alongside hawthorn, for hedges here - if you see them in springtime, they're very easy to pick out, because they flower before they leaf, leaving masses of white flowers on nearly bare black branches.

[Milims]

If your apples with the rose blush are what I think they are - I'm very jealous! My mum had a tree like that, the apples were delicious, but she had to have it cut down as it was poorly

[Missteecee]

The yellow " plums" are probably mirabelles ... Or in our house "miracles"
They make fab jam :)