Beware the Blackthorn Winter
There are many old sayings connecting natural rhythms and cycles to the weather, things like “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” and “Ash before Oak, in for a soak; Oak before Ash, in for a splash!” However few seem to be as accurate as the ‘Blackthorn winter’, by which the blossom of the blackthorn heralds a spell of colder and more wintery weather conditions.
Late frosts and low temperatures
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is a member of the plum family, a group of trees characterised in part by the fact that their flowers bloom before the leaves have fully burst out of bud. Right now, at the beginning of April, I can look out of the window and see a ribbon of white dividing the fields in our valley and up onto the hillsides. I can also see trees closer by, being buffeted by a bitter wind which has been blowing through the valley for the last couple of days, dislodging early apple blossoms and bringing with it a frost on the ground each morning. This is the Blackthorn winter, which has arrived after a false spring which gave us hope in mid-March when we started to see early shoots and the grass developed a healthy green glow after the months of mud brown and rain.
The implications for wild food
The affects of this secondary winter varies each year, sometimes we feel a nip in the air and may have a late frost or two, perhaps a reason to put the heating back on in an evening. Some years it is more notable, 2013 was one of these years, we had snow at the end of March which affected travel across the UK. The impact on the wild food larder is most when the Blackthorn winter arrives after a balmy false spring; plants are encouraged by regular warm temperatures and burst into flower, only to have a severe frost and cold wind swiftly knock them off before they have all been pollinated, meaning less fruit will develop in a few months time. Stunted growth in plants can also affect birds and mammals as there is less food available to them as a result, in the natural world it is all connected and we witness this each year.
Is it really true?
Although it may sound a bit wishy-washy, the Blackthorn winter does appear to be a reliable indicator of imminent colder weather. We grow our own vegetables and have friends who run market gardens; if we’ve been bold enough to plant seeds as soon as the warm weather starts then we will definitely be watching the weather carefully when the blackthorn blossom arrives.
Amy is a UK wild food instructor and naturalist with over a decade of experience working and volunteering with ecological consultants, local wildlife charities and nationwide surveys. She is constantly developing her knowledge about wild edibles and studying how we can contribute to the natural environments which mean so much to us.