I have started a sloe from hobby seeds. Have some more seeds from Sheffield in stratification right now. If you are interested, you or I can make an order and we could split cost and 50 seeds each. I would request two stolens from Ken so we could each get one. This is a species I’m trying my darndest to get, but I don’t want to get a hundred seeds either.
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Sounds great to me!
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I bought a few cuttings from etsy but not sure if any of them really made it, a couple maybe started to root but I abandoned them in the dirt so hopefully maybe one survived. But I also had one whole plant imported from Italy 
Didn’t have enough time to start growing and has been out in the Wisconsin weather, but as far as I can tell it’s still alive. I’ll update this spring.
Maybe eventually if the thing lives and starts growing really good I’ll root some cuttings from it myself and have them available for people to buy
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Oh dude, you got seabuckthorn over there? HAIL YEA! xD Mine haven’t started fruiting yet but hopefully soon
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Here’s a very interesting video from the UK with different wild(?) plum types.
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Just giving a flavor report.
Sloe just tastes like a plum. I did not find sloe to be distinct enough from the library of cultivated plums that I would grow it. The plant is associated with chronic infections because the thorns detach and become embedded under the skin while harboring bacteria infectious to humans. I decided I would not plant. It becomes invasive on the latitude of Minnesota-Wisconsin-Michigan. If it added something really unique and valuable I would have said so, since I’m growing Seaberry. I am interested in establishing deer-resistant hedges, for which my first trial will be Silver Buffaloberry.
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I loved sloe berry taste in gin. I have not had it in 35 years or longer. I don’t care for gin as a rule and I find it very likely the sloe taste is what I really like.
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This was great, thank you.
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I love sloe gin in a tart, just a little driizled on top of plain tart custard pies.
this is an interesting video from the historian Ruth Goodman, it’s from the Edwardian farm series. she’s foraging buckthorn and making sloe gin. (fixed link)
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Check this combination… gooseberries, sloes, persimmons, seabuckthorns, and medlars… xD I wonder how it’d taste Oh, and maybe throw in some hardy kiwi berries too lol
edit saskatoon berries too
editx2 and maybe honeyberries xD
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I like your enthusiasm. You will have the motivation to get plants started. Please see my advice in the post:
I recommend reading the book “The Fruit Gardener’s Bible” because the authors lived in cold climates, unlike most orchard books.
Some of those fruit that you mentioned will not work together, but you motivated me to try some combinations.
I dislike the idea of growing blackthorn aka sloe due to it being invasive and the thorns detaching causing chronic infections and requiring surgical removal. Seems like a public health hazard.
Sloe compote juice blended with seaberry works surprisingly well, so I would expect the right European plums as compote would work well in that position too.
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I went back to the local grocery and bought Blackthorn Preserves today. What can I say, the taste is similar to prunes & plums. Best preserves there are still black currant and white cherry.
Lucky me they had Mozart Chocolate (Mozartkugeln) at checkout and that was a lot better than mainstream chocolate.
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Taking your word of caution and doing a little research I decided to dig up my sloe. It survived the winter and is making some leaves n as expected some of it had died so I just cut it back but the one part that shows the most growth is the smallest branch O_o So I guess the cold didn’t really bother it. Going to… try to plant it in a container of some sort and treat it with slightly more apprehension.
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Yeah, I would like a deer hedge too. But I don’t want wounds that never heel like sloe. I had sloe again the last couple days. It’s not much different from prune plums aka European plums.
For many years one of the most pleasant autumn activities has been to bike off to the sloe bushes in our neighborhood park. I pick them, freeze them, pour boiling sugar water over them, and leave them for a day. I defy you to come up with a better tasting fruit juice (antioxidants too). But no, don’t eat them raw.
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