What a summer! My poor garden is burned to a crisp and everything’s wilting, including me. But the fruit garden is producing bumper crops. You’d think they would shrivel in 32C heat, but the black and red currants, gooseberries and blackberries are sweet and juicy.
Last night I wandered round the garden collecting a basket of fruit to make jam. I had planned to make strawberry jam from the pots of runners planted in April. But the tiny plants only yielded a handful of fruit. So delicious though. The plants only cost 60p each, mail order. I wrote about planting them Here. I’m hopeful of larger crops next summer.
The blackberries were the best I’ve ever seen though. A bumper crop and large fruit. Sometimes wild blackberries are so tiny they are hardly worth picking. But these soon filled a basket.
I threw the whole lot in a heavy based pan to make garden jam. Wow, what a scent. If it’s possible to capture sunshine and summer in a jar, this is the way to do it.
Garden Jam
To make 2 jars I used 500g fruit, 500g sugar 75ml water, juice of 1 lemon.
Method:
Place a saucer in the freezer for testing the setting point later.
Put fruit, water and lemon juice in a heavy based pan. Cook the fruit gently until soft.
Add sugar and simmer carefully until all the sugar crystals are absorbed.
Increase the heat to a rolling boil. After 10- 15 minutes, put a teaspoon of jam on the plate and gently push. If it wrinkles, it has reached setting point. If not, cook for another 5 minutes, taking care not to burn the jam.
Stand for 15 minutes
Pot into sterilised and warmed jars.
Fresh scones :
3oz butter
1lb plain flour
Pinch salt
1oz caster sugar
1.5 tsp. baking power
2 eggs and 6floz milk beaten together.
Add all the dry ingredients and rub together. Add liquids and mix carefully. Don’t over handle the mixture
Roll out thickly and cut into circles. Brush top with a little of the reserved egg/ milk mixture.
Bake for 10 mins until golden, oven temp. 230C, gas mark 8
Eat whilst still warm – or as soon as possible. Can be frozen as soon as cooled, to keep fresh.
I often ask twitter friends for recipes and gardening advice. Here’s a reply that came from Bob Flowerdew. I’m looking forward to trying his recipe.
And this came from June Girvin, which is similar to the recipe I ended up with. It’s absolutely delicious.
After all that foraging and cooking, we sat in the 1930s summerhouse, turned to face the cool woodland and pond and feasted on the jewels of the garden.
Surrounding us, there’s sounds of harvesting and baling. There’s a scent of new hay and oats on the breeze, and we watch entranced as barn owls swoop across the empty fields, like ghosts. They don’t notice us sitting quietly amongst the trees.
Here’s this week’s Garden Hour on BBC Radio Leicester where I chat away about what’s happening in my garden. Put your feet up and have a listen in sometime. The programme starts at 2.10.27 on the timeline. And the music’s not bad this week too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06cd1bd
I am @kgimson on twitter and karengimson1 on instagram. Please share this on any social media platform you like, and don’t forget to leave a comment below. Thank you.