A selection of our jams with our brand new logo!

Over the last few months, bubbling away in the background has been the usual mammoth job of harvesting and preserving all of the fruits and berries from the allotment, as well as those gathered from our foraging! Much of what we do centres around making the most of what we have. Often we will make an abundance of wine or preserves with something one year to find we struggle to make up a single batch of the same thing the following year. (Usually when its something we really like.) Its all part of living around what you have, when you have it and the challenge is part of the fun.

In previous years we had huge harvests from our gooseberries and strawberries; this year has not been so great. Both got off to a slow start - having been frequently trampled by Bobby - and their yields suffered as a result. As we didn't have enough for a decent sized straight batch of jam (let alone our usual wines an ice creams), we opted instead for a Strawberry and Gooseberry jam. It really does hit the spot and is not something we would have necessarily tried had both crops not struggled.

A stainless steel pan half filled with halved and stoned purple skinned plums with yellow flesh.

By contrast, our new allotment has a plum tree which graced us an abundance of glorious Victoria plums. We've bottled a fair amount in brandy syrup, perfect for winter desserts, turned a good weight into wine and still had more than we would care to imagine left - so made some beautiful jam too.

Not long after we'd finished processing those plums, one of our neighbours came over to kindly offer us nearly five kilograms of Black Amber plums. Their tree had it's first glut in nine years! It would have been rude to have turned down such a bounty.

Plum jams are not something we have been able to experiment with before now. I think I found my favourite of all in our Black Amber Jam, it's mature and complex and not too sweet. It's brilliant in porridge or makes a fantastic filling for a Victoria sponge!

This is our first year having meaningful crops of blackcurrants and raspberries. While we do have plants in the garden, they seldom produce anything more than a couple of berries. The mature (almost wild) plants on our allotment provided an abundance of fantastic fruit just as we moved in. We've made the first of many batches of preserves from our raspberries, a lovely Seedless Raspberry Jelly, and I want to make at least another batch of jam if not two. We are yet to start on the blackcurrant jelly but its definitely on the cards, with over four kilo in the freezer we have a lot opportunity to play around with ideas.

Our next priority will be making our family favourite Hedgerow Jelly. This is a staunch, tried and tested family favourite and although it will need some tweaks from the original recipe, it has become a staple for us. It comprises of - as the name suggests - all manner of foraged berries from native hedgerows. This means it really does leave us at the mercy of Mother Nature. This year's been a real struggle to gather everything we needed. We're already having to omit the sloes and elderberries this time around as there was only enough to make some wines. Instead, we'll be trying a far more variable recipe that calls for rowans, hawthorn berries, blackberries and rosehips, combined with an equal measure of apples. I'm sure it will go down just as well in our Christmas gifting as it usually does.

Those of you who know us now will know there's always a lot of wine making going on as well, but I'll saver that treat for another post!

- Rebecca

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