Everything, all at once.

[Mike G]

Anyone who has visited us in the last 3 or 4 weeks has been required (yes, it's compulsory) to go away with 3 or 4 bunches of grapes. I've spent this afternoon mashing and sieving the last of them, and bottled 6 litres of grape juice. It had to be done because the wasps are just starting to get to them in the greenhouse. I spent half of yesterday picking plums: 5 bucket-fulls from one tree. An absolute glut, and starting to drop. (Recipes for low-sugar jam eagerly sought!). We have 6 greengage trees now, each with the heaviest crop we've seen in 11 years here. I'll have to pick them as soon as this storm is gone, and we'll be selling them to passers-by over the next week or two. I'll give our close friends a bucket-full. The trees are so laden that I've had to prop branches up to prevent them breaking, and so we can walk the garden paths. Thank goodness the bullus won't be ready for another 4 or 5 weeks!

The problem with growing your own food is that much of it arrives at the same time. We'll next be worrying what to do with all of the sweetcorn, and whether we get to eat it, or will a rat find it first and invite in the hordes.

 

[Pete Maddex]

We have bumper crops of blackberry's, mirabelle plums, red currants, gooseberry's and victoria plums.
I have made 9 jars red current jam 5 red current, 13 of blackberry and have 3Kg of blackberry's in the freezer ready for the next batch of jam.
Then that will give me room for the mirabelles to get frozen then I can squeeze out the stones and make more jam.
I have redcurrent gin, blackberry gin and kumquat and orange gin that should be ready soon.
We had a big branch break off the victoria plum tree last week but there is still loads on the tree.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

When I was twelve we moved into an early Victorian property with a huge greenhouse containing three vines. The grapes used to fall on the ground and ferment, to be eaten by the mice. I had great fun putting my ferret in amongst them and watching them running around in circles.

 

[Mike G]

.......mirabelle plums.....

We inherited our plum tree, and have no idea what variety it is. We knew one thing for certain, that it wasn't a Victoria. We now know two things: it isn't a Mirabelle either. Small, purple plums, and somewhat sharper in taste than most.

 

[Mike G]

....... kumquat........

Don't waste kumquat on gin! It makes the very best marmalade on the entire planet.

 

[AndyP]

Plum jam I have made in the past. I aim for a 60% Fruit to 40% sugar by using either pectin from a bottle of some cooked mashed apple and lemon juice. I’ve even added a sheet of gelatine in the past to get awkward fruits to set.

 

[Steve Maskery]

A tad of envy here.
We've had a drought for months now, so berries are not plumtious, our neighbours' plums are non-existent this year, and the roadside blackberries are the size of petit pois.
I planted a new peach tree this spring, and to my amazement it produced one, singular, peach. I was hard, so I left it a few days. Yesterday I found it on the ground, it had been someone else's meal. But, undeterred, I ate the rest. It wasn't just juicy and sweet, it hadthe most excellent flavour. So if that what the tree is going to produce in the coming years, I (or my successor) will be very happy indeed.
I've just made a blackberry and apple crumble. Apple from the supermarket, blackberries from the roadside (too expensive to buy in the supermarket - 4€ for 125g - Yikes!). With custard. Fantastic.
S

 

[Pete Maddex]

Don't waste kumquat on gin! It makes the very best marmalade on the entire planet.

It makes nice gin as well, sampling some now…

Pete

 

[Pete Maddex]

A tad of envy here.
We've had a drought for months now, so berries are not plumtious, our neighbours' plums are non-existent this year, and the roadside blackberries are the size of petit pois.
I planted a new peach tree this spring, and to my amazement it produced one, singular, peach. I was hard, so I left it a few days. Yesterday I found it on the ground, it had been someone else's meal. But, undeterred, I ate the rest. It wasn't just juicy and sweet, it hadthe most excellent flavour. So if that what the tree is going to produce in the coming years, I (or my successor) will be very happy indeed.
I've just made a blackberry and apple crumble. Apple from the supermarket, blackberries from the roadside (too expensive to buy in the supermarket - 4€ for 125g - Yikes!). With custard. Fantastic.
S

I hope that was proper custard from a packet.

Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well I'm not sure I would equate "proper custard" with "from a packet" !
But yes it was (only slightly Out Of Date) Bird's. Sheila still equates custard with school dinners and refuses to be re-educated, yet she loves ice-cream, which is basically frozen custard. Go figure.
Proper custard, full-fat milk, egg yolks, vanilla and sugar is the best, and not very difficult. But Bird's is good and easy. Who cares about BBE dates?
S
PS The "crème anglaise" in cartons here is quite decent.

 

[Raymedullary]

Plums and blackberries in huge abundance here in the "garden of England"
BUT on yesterdays morning run a fig tree in fully ripened bloom... delicious.

 

[NickM]

We inherited our plum tree, and have no idea what variety it is. We knew one thing for certain, that it wasn't a Victoria. We now know two things: it isn't a Mirabelle either. Small, purple plums, and somewhat sharper in taste than most.

Damsons? Probably not as they're very sharp. Like battery acid in my view!

 

[Mike G]

Damsons? Probably not as they're very sharp. Like battery acid in my view!

No, we've got a damson tree as well, and it's not the same. That'll need picking any day now.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Damsons make wonderful jam, as do Kea plums.

 

[Phil]

Our first house (old fixer-upper) had lots of peach trees, a hedge of quinces and then the large plum tree.
I would take boxes and boxes of plums to work and leave them at the security gate for the factory people.
Then the plums would start falling, big mess, smelly, rotten. Could not mow the lawns for weeks.
The quinces were not worth the effort as they were stung by the fruit fly.

 

[Pete Maddex]

7kg of mirabelle plums picked today and it looks like I haven’t touched the tree.
One bag 3 1/2 kg in the freezer getting ready for me to squeeze the stones out.

Pete

 

[AJB Temple]

Glut here too.

We picked 22kg of plums - mostly Mirabelle - on Monday, plus 12kg of greengages, 7kg of loquats (foraged), 2kg of chanterelles (foraged from Flimwell) and various other mushrooms.

Made spicy and sweet plum conserves (goes well with pork and chicken).
Greengages made into greengage and ginger jam.
Loquats made into chutney.
Also put some of each in the dehydrator.

Also made some cider (it's a bit early for the apples) and 3 litres of apple juice.
Chanterelles have been used to make stuffed chicken breasts (a Gordon Ramsay recipe in fact) which are now in the freezer. The rest have been dehydrated.

Sadly we don't have any grapes, but if you have shed loads, juice them and freeze.

Sloes are super abundant - but not ready for harvest yet.

 

[AndyP]

Didn't weigh them but after 10 days away 2 buckets loads of apples, windfalls, went on the compost heap.

For excess courgettes, or marrows, try this

Marrow & ginger jam

A traditional way to use up marrows, or courgettes, that have grown too big for their boots

www.bbcgoodfood.com

Plenty of pectin needed to get it to set.

 

[AndyT]

We don't have acres of orchard - just one old apple tree. I made two chairs so we can sit in the shade in summer, but this year the sheer weight of fruit has thwarted that idea!

 

[duke]

Heavy for sure, nice chairs and lovely sitting area Andy.

 

[Doug]

My wife’s favourite tomato by far is ALDI’s piccolato tomato



Over the years I’ve grown dozens of different varieties but non have measured up to the Aldi ones she likes so much.
This year instead of sowing packet seeds I sowed some fresh from a couple of the the Aldi tomatoes, I figured they would grow but wasn’t expecting the plants to crop quite as well as they have.





To say I’m in her good books is an understatement & I’ll certainly be doing the same again next year.

 

[Mike G]

Yep.........find something you like, gather the seeds, grow it yourself. It's a great way to garden.

 

[Doug]

Yep.........find something you like, gather the seeds, grow it yourself. It's a great way to garden.

Completely agree Mike

I forgot to mention we’d done the same with Aldi’s sweet peppers



Unfortunately we were a bit late ideally for sowing these but hopefully we’ll get at least one pepper by the end of the summer

 

[RogerS]

We’ve inherited a small plum tree with the new house. That’s breakfast and lunch taken care of

 

[Pete Maddex]

First batch of mirabelle plum and orange on the way now.

Pete

 

[Lurker]

That’s interesting Doug, I was under the impression that most shop bought tomatoes were F1 and didn’t come true to type.
Will try that next year.

 

[Doug]

I’ve wondered about that Jim, 20 years ago I grew two acers from seed they’ve made beautiful trees yet I was told at the time they wouldn’t come true from seed

 

[Lurker]

This is our sixth summer in this house.
First year the plum tree cropped quite well, since then no fruit survived long enough to eat. Squirrels, pigeons eating the new leaf buds and any that survived that were maggoty.
This year it’s loaded with clean fruits that probably need another few weeks to ripen.
Finally took the trouble to identify what it was.
Apparently Blue tit which I had never heard of before.

 

[Lurker]

Today I have been making…..
Plum gin
So far I have picked 30lb of plums , frozen some , eaten some, given lots away.
I reckon that there’s still at least 40lb on the tree.

 

[AndyT]

There's a crumble in the oven and apple slices in the freezer. If you want any nice eating apples, there's a boxful on the garden wall, but I rather suspect there's one outside every other house round here at present...

 

[AndyP]

Someone left us a few euros for some large marrows we left outside our house a week or so back.
We to have freezer full or sliced bramleys ready for winter crumbles. Pears are just beginning to drop now.

 

[AJB Temple]

I'm giving serious consideration to making pasteurised apple juice. Currently looking for a second hand commercial juicer and filter spinner. I'm going to store it in demijohns normally used for cider making, plus two 20 litre plastic drums that I can freeze.

We sold 60 bottles of apple juice at the charity garden opening we just did. Unpasteurised and unfiltered.

Plum juice is not viable, sadly. It is very usable, and could make plum wine, but needs to be de-stoned first and do do a large quantity - say 50kg - is a lot of work.

Preserved cherries are also quite good. Much easier to pip than plums and greengages.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I picked 29 tomatoes on Monday. Full size, not cherry. All summer, up to this point, less than a dozen had ripened, but they all decided to come in at once. I used 4 of them yesterday, but I'm going to have learn how to make tomato sauce by this weekend.

 

[Mike G]

I've given away 35 kgs of greengages so far. I've found a shop who are "selling" them for donations to the local air ambulance, and they've taken 20kg. The rest have gone to friends. There are still loads on the trees.

 

[wallace]

Can you imagine if everyone was encouraged to have some kind of fruiting tree/plant, what it would do to the health. 40years ago I used to pinch apples from the very tree I now own, I used to catch similar kids getting apples but not for a long time now.
We have a plum tree which has an abundance of fruit but they taste horrid for some reason.