There is a fruit and produce fair in the village this Sunday and I have donated two jars of jam to the tombola school run by my daughter’s under 5 group. The Mrs applauds that while still insisting that making all those jams and chutneys is a waste of time. As they are handed out as Christmas presents we will go through the same exchange.
As we drive back from Chester we pass over the small trout river Alyn which flows into the Dee a few miles downstream from us. By yesterday afternoon it had already burst its banks. The Mrs texted through a flood warning for the Dee and by the time the kids and I got home the waters, normally a good four or five feet below the old orchard, were lapping at its edges.
Last night I started on the production of the mother. in law’s favourite, rhubarb and ginger jam of which more later. The night before it was apples and more tomatoes. What you see below is from left to right: stewed apples with a small clove filled muslin bag inside, canned tomatoes with a home-grown chili and stewed apples with mixed spice.
If Joshua and the Mrs. had their way we would already be putting up a tree and starting to decorate for Christmas. I am, you will not be surprised to hear, keener on dressing the tree to the sounds of Carols from King’s College at that minor Fenland university on Christmas Eve as we did as young children. There is always a compromise. But what you see below are not decorations although they could be in a couple of months.
It has not been a great crop for either. I blame the weather. But the first pepper was harvested and joined home grown tomatoes and bought in minced pork and cheese in a home grown stuffed marrow for supper. The green chillies are from just one plant and on their own will be enough to support my cooking and also the Indian meals the Mrs prepares up until Christmas. There are more plants to harvest if it ever stops raining
Joshua snd I picked raspberries through the rain and it really was a bumper plunde of reds, golden and pink berries, more than 1.3 kg in all. These bushes are a gift that keep on giving. So there was enough to flash freeze another tray and also to make four pots of jam. With seven more jars of jam ( blasckberry andd apple) made late into the night, the larder is now bulging with jams aand chutneys. Next up, rhubarb and ginger jam, apple stewing and chilli stringing.
For some reason this blackberry and apple crumble made on Saturday turned out far larger than I had planned. The blackberries were foraged by myself and the kids from the lane by my wife’s chapel, the apples are cooking apples from the tree in what was once the jungle, picked by myself and Joshua.
As the rain started to come down but before the heavens opened in full, Joshua (13) and myself (87) managed to pick 100 stems of lavender from the bushes that now form a “wall” where the vegetable patch overlooks the track down to the farm. There are plenty mores stems and by next weekend, if it ever stops raining, I aim to have four bunches hanging up in the kitchen on the old meat hooks embedded in its beams.
The lightening flashed. The thunder crashed and the rain bucketed it down. The cats scampered around the house terrified by the noise. I explained to Joshua, with schoolboy maths, that the lightening must be landing less than 1000 yards away. There could be no more gardening today so Joshua settled down to watch a Percy Jackson film, I drew the curtains and for both warmth and as a comfort I lit my first fire of the Autumn.
There are still some apples on the trees and good ones on the floor in the old orchard by the river and a few cooking apples in a similar state up in what was the jungle. Joshua and I collected a basketfull of those this afternoon as the thunder rolled across a dark sky and grew louder and louder, a prelude to a dramatic storm. Tonight, I stew apples. But last night it was chutney making.
Sometimes I feel unbelievably proud to be of vague Irish descent. But sometimes I feel nothing but shame. When the girls of the national soccer team sing tribute to the IRA I am revolted. But it is Israel and the Jews where the Irish seem to score particularly badly right now. Is there something in the water turning so many folks into raging antisemites? Meet Dublin Senator Gerard Craughwell.
I now have four crab apple trees in my new upper orchard, there mainly to ensure the cross pollination of apple trees old and new around the farm. But they also yield their own fruit. Had I harvested a couple of weeks earlier I would have got around 8 lbs as quite a few apples have dropped to the floor and started to rot. Instead I came away with just over six lbs which were cleaned and then with the stalks removed cut in half and left to stew. The water could not get too hot as that would have destroyed the pectin on the skins which is the binding agent. Eventually the apples were soft enough to mush and that mush was left to drain through a muslin cloth overnight.
We have had a fine crop of beetroot this year and already enjoyed it with many meals. Now the last few plants have been pulled from the ground as you can see below. I reckon that is about five family meals with Joshua loving the stuff but Jaya refusing even when we tell her it is a pink carrot. She likes carrots and, like all little girls these days, all things pink.
The six children and step children of my late father are this week swapping emails about the annual pre Christmas meal and present swap we have with many of our kids in Shipston where Dad and his second wife Helen live and are buried. All will smile as I mention tomatoes and Dr Tom Winnifrith.
It is one of those chores that is a bit fiddly so I put it off again and again.
