Roadside plum harvest

In almost any place around the world you will find wild fruit trees on the sides of the roads, particularly small country lanes.  In our region we are lucky to have an abundance of 'cherry plums' and apples (and plenty of blackberries too, but you would want to find an unsprayed patch - as most blackberries in our area get heavily sprayed), as well as chestnuts, peaches and pears.  Some groups are putting together 'scrumping' maps so that the whole community can make use of the harvest. 

I took the kids recently to pick a few buckets full of plums.  The kids ate heaps of them, about a kilogram was turned into a delicious chutney and another kilogram or so was made into wine.  I had planned on making jam as well, but didn't get around to it (last year I made several batches of plum jam).  Chutney making is very well suited to the woodstove, as it requires long slow cooking (something I never could do well on our old electric or gas cook tops - as I've always felt guilty about power use...).  My chutneys have become more or less just a creative process, not much measuring or weighing, just a bit of this and a bit of that!

The wine making is probably the least abount of work.  Last year I made about 12 or 13 bottles of blackberry wine (its been sitting for almost a year now in our cool pantry - we get to sample it in April this year).  This year I thought I would try to make wine from our local plums. The wine is fermeting away in its glass demijohn and will probably take a month or more before it stops, at which point I'll be able to bottle it. 

Its fun to use the foods that grow locally, and to learn different ways of preserving them.  I am looking forward to the apple harvests this year, as our roadside apples are loaded with fruit.  I am planning on drying a whole heap, plus making chutney, bottling some and making some cider.  Meanwhile the blackberries are starting to ripen...

My precious

I think that raspberries are just wonderful. They are nice to eat, but they are also SO easy to grow. I think that if I were in charge of the world I would make it compulsory for every house to have a small patch! My patch is a rather wild one, it started with just a few suckers that my mum gave me, and each year they multiply. I keep pulling them out of the path and planting them up at the farm or giving them away to others.

This year has been a good year for raspberries (well, actually, I can't think of when we had a BAD year for raspberries!!). I only watered them the first summer that I put them in, and occasionally a bucket of water from the washing machine, and yet we get bucket loads of berries, about 1kg every 2 days for a couple of weeks.

I've already made one batch of jam, and am about to make a second. Our daughter loves them, and helps pick them, and has eaten tonnes of them! The only down side is that each variety only fruits for a short while, so to have a long crop you need a few different varieties.

Peaches, glorious peaches!

Well, its that time of year when my beautiful peach tree rewards me for the forsight to plant it 5-6 years ago. Money well spent I reckon! This tree is a yellow fleshed clingstone, called Golden Queen. Fantastic variety, although I am biased. I have never bought a peach from the shop since I tasted my first one off the tree (shop bought peaches are NOT what peaches taste like).


The last few years we have had really good crops, and even though the birds have gotten to much of the fruit (plus peaches seem to just want to fall off the tree green...), we have still picked well over 10kg.


I've bottled 11 bottles so far, plus eaten many, and given some away, plus the chickens have had some etc etc.

I really enjoy the bottling of the fruit, not sure why more people don't do it. Sure it takes some time, but so does working to pay for the food we buy, and I know what I'd rather do! And the end product is so much better than anything you buy in the shop. The other advantage is that I can reuse and reuse the jars (most of them are already second hand) so I know that I am doing something good for our planet too. Funny thing, I had just run out of jars and a friend of ours came round to help with some work at the farm, and brought me 2 big boxes full (all with stainless steel lids too!).

Speaking of the farm, here is said friend and Brad putting up the guttering on the shed!


We still have a few bits and pieces to finish off the outside of the shed, some flashing, and the other side guttering. Its so nice to see the shed with walls now, a great feeling of accomplishment. Anyway, soon we can start on some new project!

This is the way we bottle the fruit....

A friend tipped me off about some cheap cases of apricots at our local fruit and veg shop. So, temptation took hold and I bought a case, 10kg of apricots. So I set to preserving....

washing, cutting and packing the fruit into jars. Pouring in the syrup, and then into the preserving unit.

and the result is 8 lovely jars of home bottled apricots, which we will enjoy for the remainder of the year, along with other fruits such as the peaches off our own very productive tree.

I also got 7 jars of jam out of the 10kgs of fruit, plus I still had enough to give away and for eating. Not bad for a days work.

Now I just picked 1kg of raspberries off our plants, so I will probably have to set about making some raspberry jam soon..... Ahhh the joys of summer.