It has been a bumper year for fruit here in Waffle Towers. I have never had seen so many plums on the plum tree out the front. I would pick up all the plums from the path and what I laughingly call the lawn every morning and by lunch time there would be the same again. And then all over again in the evening.
The fridge looked like this almost all the time.
A plastic bowl lived by the front door and anyone who was going out had to fill it with plums. We encouraged neighbours to come and take them. I was almost constantly in jam production mode. They all had to be stoned.
Then boiled.
One day I made 13 kgs of jam. 13 kgs.
I ran out of jam jars and had to get on to the neighbourhood whatsapp group to get more.
Happily the plum harvest is now complete just in time for the beginning of apple season (enthusiastic readers will recall that we have THREE apple trees in the back garden). I cut up loads of (it felt like 100s, can it have been 100s?) windfall apples this afternoon after my trip to watch more polo (I can see myself becoming a fan, we chatted to a lovely older gentlemen who told us more about the rules and his Argentinian friend whose ranch he went to a couple of years ago to play – he seemed a bit old for it but, I guess, the horse does most of the running – and who was here now on a visit and playing with a local team). This is the current situation in the kitchen on apple jelly production.
My beloved middle child who is interested in cooking made hot sauce this morning and very nice it was too but it only used two apples. More drastic measures are called for.
In other garden produce news, for my breakfast porridge in the morning I can now step into the garden and pick fresh berries. True, those berries are blackberries which were very much self-seeded. My tiny garden is out of control. A friend of mine said years ago, “Every garden has at least one thug.” And I found it comforting but now my garden seems to be entirely thugs as follows:
- Brambles;
- Convolvolus (everywhere, absolutely everywhere);
- Coltsfoot (somehow also everywhere);
- Some very invasive blue flower that Mr. Waffle’s friend gave to him as part of an Irish wildflower pack (hard not to be bitter about this one);
- St John’s Wort;
- Ivy;
- Copious quantities of the usual dandelions, daisies and clover of course;
- New this season: nettles and dockleaves;
- Montbretia which I like but which we all know is basically a weed;
- A Japanese anemone which I planted like a fool; and
- Many other things that I do not know the names of but I know a weed when I see it.
Still, I grew these in my garden. It’s not all bad.
Updated to add: first batch of jelly complete.
Also jam storage space in the utility room is approaching capacity.
