first blackberries

As I was driving into town this week I noticed many ripe blackberries in the hedges. They looked too good to miss so I bought a small container and stopped on my way home.

I picked these on Greenham Common. Although remembered for the RAF base, nuclear warheads and associated peace protest, it is now a beautiful open space for everyone to enjoy.

A picture of the water lilies on the pond because they looked perfect this week. A lovely place to spend a few minutes  - and blackberries too!

apple blossom time

We have four apple trees in our garden, a Bramley for cooking, a crab apple which makes lovely crab apple jelly and two dwarf trees of the eating apple varieties Discovery and Sunset.

The trees are all in blossom at the same time which should mean we get good pollination though the weather is dull and wet today and I haven't seen many bees.

The four different varieties have slightly different blossom. The Bramley buds are dark pink opening to pale pink petals with darker pink undersides.

The crab apple "John Downie" is pure white.

The Discovery has a slight pink tinge to the petals

and the Sunset has pink buds and very pale petals.  

It is such a lovely time of year in the garden and there is the promise of fruit to come later in the summer.

at home this week

This week I picked, boiled and strained the crab apples and now I have the juice to make into jelly. The harvest is late this year, when I made jelly a few years ago I picked the apples at the end of August.

Blackberries are ripening later as well, due to the cool summer perhaps. These have been frozen to be cooked with apples in the winter.

I've been thinking about indoor plants. Hyacinths and Paperwhites have been planted in pots. The hyacinths are in the cool dark of the garage until the shoots appear but the narcissus sit on the kitchen windowsill where I will watch them grow and flower over the next few weeks.

I'm also taking cuttings to rejuvenate some favourite indoor plants. Its good to have some flowers and foliage inside as the plants outside slow down for winter.

first blackberries

The first few blackberries are ripening but its early yet and all stages of the flowers and fruit are here at the same time.

There is  the delicate pink blossom

buzzing with bees

the small green berries

red berries

and finally a few ripe ones. Autumn is on its way.

For the August Break 2012

November jam making

This week I defrosted the juice from the redcurrants picked back in June 

and from the crab apples picked at the end of August

combined them and added sugar at the ratio of 1lb sugar to 1pint of juice

and made some very pretty coloured jelly. It was nice to have the smell of summer in my kitchen on a grey November day.

Elderberry Cordial

Back in June I made elderflower cordial for the first time. It seemed to capture summer in a bottle.

Elderberry cordial which I have been making for years definitely tastes more of autumn and winter.

This is how I make it.

There are just three ingredients, elderberries, cloves and sugar.

I use about 20-30 clean dry elderberry heads.  Shake to remove any insects, earwigs seem to hide in mine.
Remove the berries from the stalks using a fork. I wear kitchen gloves for this bit as elderberry juice is a dye and will stain fingers purple! The stalks and any unripened berries can be toxic so it is important to use ripe fruit and to take time over this stage.

Place in a large saucepan and just cover with water.

Bring the mixture to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for thirty minutes. I use a wooden spoon to squash the berries against the side of the pan to release as much juice as possible.

Strain the juice through a jelly bag.

To each pint of juice add one pound of sugar (454g) and 10 cloves.  I obtained three quarters of a pint of juice so added 12 oz of sugar and eight cloves. Warm the mixture slowly, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Increase the heat and boil the mixture for ten minutes.

The mixture can be allowed to cool and then poured into sterilised bottles or if like me you don't want to spend any more money on fancy bottles you can use jam jars.

I made two jars of cordial from approximately 25 heads of elderberries.

Elderberries are said to have some health benefits, particularly to help the body recover from viral infections. I take a dessert spoonful twice a day if I have a cold or the syrup can be diluted with hot water to make a warming drink.

Elderflower cordial recipe

For Heather who asked about the recipe for elderflower cordial.

I followed this recipe in Red magazine.  I made half the quantity as it contains a lot of sugar and is very sweet - not a very healthy drink but a lovely summer treat.

A very small vegetable plot

This is the patch of garden that will be my vegetable plot this year. I will move the hyacinths and forget-me-nots once I start planting! I think the area is about four square yards which is very different from my allotment plot which was over 100 square yards although that included my compost bins and all the paths between the beds.

I'm thinking about what to grow in such a small space, so far I've started dwarf french beans and swiss chard. I've decided not to sow direct since we have so many slugs ready to nibble young seedlings and more established plants will stand a better chance of survival.  The chard will be planted out in a few weeks but the beans will have to wait until the chance of a late frost has passed.

I also have some curly kale plants growing which will take up quite a lot of space but I am trying to include more dark green vegetables in my diet and want to grow some.

I've have planted strawberry plants in a strip of land alongside the garden shed. They are planted closer together than is recommended but this part of the garden was a favourite with the chickens so I'm hoping the soil is quite well manured and the plants will do well.

I'll also be growing in pots, this is salad leaves protected from the neighbouring cats who seem to like to use my pots as litter trays.

It will be interesting to see just how much produce I will be able to get from this small space this summer.

Chutney

The green tomato chutney is now made and the jars are waiting in the cool of the garage for a couple of months for the flavours to mellow, though I'm already looking forward to eating some.

In my preserving year, bottling rhubarb is always the first task and making chutney is the last. Next year will be different as I think I will be giving up my allotment. It is a hard decision to make after having it for 14 years but I haven't been able to do much over the last few months and although I hope to be recovered soon I don't want to risk hurting myself again next year. I will miss the rhubarb, and the soft fruit most.

I have a smallish garden and won't be able to grow many vegetables but I do have an apple tree and can grow tomatoes in pots on the patio so even without the allotment I will be able to preserve some home-grown food, as chutney.

October Tomatoes

After getting off to a slow start my tomatoes have been very prolific over the past weeks. Yesterday I picked five pounds which at the moment are in the oven with olive oil, onion and black pepper, slowly reducing down to a delicious tomato sauce.
I think these may be the last of the tomatoes to ripen in the garden, it is October after all, but there will still be a few green ones left to make some chutney. Time to preserve a little bit of late summer goodness before the cold weather starts.

Plums and tomatoes

I haven't been able to do much gardening this summer but I still have something to harvest. At the moment it is plums and tomatoes.

Four years ago I planted a small plum tree "Marjorie's Seedling" in the front garden. I have picked a few plums each year but this year the tree was very productive and I harvested almost 10 pounds of fruit. These have a lovely flavour fresh or stewed. Plums are now thought to be a "superfood" so as well as tasting good they have health benefits too.

My tomatoes have suffered from blossom end rot this year and many of the fruits have been affected but some plants have yielded perfect fruits. I have nine plants in pots on the patio. They get only a few hours sun a day and so ripen fairly late in the summer but in the last week many have ripened. As well as enjoying them raw I have made a tomato "sauce" in the oven.

I mixed chopped tomatoes and shallots with olive oil and black pepper and then baked the mixture in a medium oven for about an hour. Cooking tomatoes increases the bioavailability of some of the nutrients so this simple pasta sauce tastes good and has health benefits

I have been getting a bit grumpy about not being able to garden this summer, I am still very stiff and unable to bend enough to reach the soil, but this harvest from the garden has made me feel a lot better

Tomatoes

It was all going so well.  My 29p packet of seeds planted in compost from the compost bin (free) had grown into large healthy looking plants with plenty of fruit. I was looking forward to lots of inexpensive tomatoes.

Some were beginning to ripen. I don't really get enough sun in my garden for tomatoes, this spot under the kitchen window is the sunniest but it gets only four to five hours of sunlight each day so they are always late ripening.

Then I noticed this.

After some internet research I think it is blossom end rot. This is caused by a lack of calcium, too much nitrogen and fluctuations in soil moisture. Since the compost contained much nitrogenous chicken poop and the plants are in pots which are prone to drying out I can see how it occurred but it is disappointing.

All I can do now is to pick the affected fruit, be careful to water thoroughly and hope for the best. If it looks as if more dark spots are developing, I might pick all the tomatoes and make green tomato chutney much earlier than usual!

A corner of my garden

My garden this morning...

This battered old bench could do with a tidy and a fresh coat of paint but I like it just as it is, faded, worn and scratched by chickens.

Purple podded climbing french beans which look stunning raw but sadly lose their colour when steamed

A mixture of flowers and vegetables growing happily together, petunias, swiss chard and some more french beans.

Still cold

We are still in the grip of icy cold here, the temperature fell to -12C last night which is very cold for us. The icicles are hanging down from our guttering along the front of the house and look very pretty although they are a constant reminder of how cold it is outside.


We have had no more snow but with such low temperatures I think the snow will be around for a while. Everything is very quiet mainly because most people cannot use their cars. A couple of neighbours with 4 wheel drive cars have been able to get out but the rest of us stay home or walk.


The main road through the village would be passable but of course many people cannot get through the smaller roads to reach it. It is a fairly busy road but this is a photograph of it yesterday, very few cars and the road given over to pedestrians rather than vehicles, much nicer.

I walked down to the village shop  and it was packed with shoppers. Lots of people, unable to get to work were enjoying having time to stop and chat while they did their shopping. I hope that the small village stores which have lost out to supermarkets in recent years do well during this cold spell.  Many villages no longer have a shop and so there is nowhere to buy groceries without using a car. It is a reminder that we must support our local shops all the time if we expect them to be there for us when we don't want or can't travel far from home.