Wednesday, 3 September 2014

Plums galore



The plum crop on our tree on our main allotment is an improvement on what we got last year, and indeed the year before. I picked a bucketful this morning and my plan was to make plum, apple and marrow jam. Sadly, when I went to pick apples from the tree on the land we started renting last year, I found only enough to fill a quarter of the bucket. A miserable crop like this leaves us with a problem. We need apples to make chutneys, sweet mince and to set jams and jellies. We need them by the sackful. We were able to get a few extra from one of the neighbouring allotment holders but we are now actively seeking new sources of apples in the area. We will explore some old orchards near out village and put out an appeal to gardeners to swap their apples for our preserves.

The abundance of plums however is greater than we planned. Tonight I got a message from a local resident offering 14kg of plums for honey and chutneys. We have checked recipe books and have found a number of recipes that will help us to use up the plum glut. I'll be posting here about them as and when we try them out.

1 comment:

elfriide tramm said...

just a simple plum jam is one of our favourites. suggest at least to try,even it seems strange in the bginning.

take some quantity, lets say 3 kg of plums. cut into halves and put into a pot,cover with appr 500 g of sugar. let stay overnight in a fridge. next day put on the stove low heat (sugar has sucked the juice out of plums, so you don't need any water etc). simmer, remove the foam several times. add some more sugar per taste, but no more than 500 (max 700) g. don't simmer tooo long! if the colour start to change and active foaming is over, it's time to pour into jars.jam should be quite liquid and pieces of plums easily recognisable. awesomw with icecream or pancakes.