Last year we decided that in 2011 we would cut back drastically on vegetable growing and the inevitable harvesting and preserving and concentrate on renovating the houses. Of course nothing goes as planned and 'other things' cropped up which demanded our attention, so little progress has been made on the houses and other than potatoes, onion, shallots, courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot and tomatoes we have little veg.
The fruit has done remarkably well however, with very little help from us.. The plums especially.
We have three very old Dittisham plum trees, which if we had the time last year would more than likely have been taken down. More than half of one tree is dead, the others not very different. To be honest earlier in the year I didn't really take much notice of the amount of blossom or whether it suffered from the late frosts and so it came as quite a surprise when we started to harvest the plums and began filling bucket after bucket.
We have made jam, chutney, sorbet, plum brandy and many crumbles. Pickled plums and plum cake are new recipes we are going to try. We have given them away to anyone willing to take them, fed them to the poultry and sheep ( who appear to have become as tried of them as we have.) and still we keep picking and perserving.
Photos: In the making
Plum jam:
Plum chutney:
Plum and apple chutney:
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3 comments:
a nice problem to have :)
Just wonderful. Our trees are too young to be producing yet, but I bought some from a neighbour and made some delicious jam. All of your preserves etc sound very good, albeit a lot of hard work!
How lucky you are to have Dittisham plum trees. I love the Dittisham plum liqueur.
Isabelle x
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