Oh crabs!

When life gives you crab apples, make crab apple jelly.


So my mystery tree turned out to be a crab apple as suspected. It's beautiful deep pink blossom was much admired back in the spring, but since I discovered it was a crab several people have wondered why it was planted on an allotment?

The answer, I think, is that it was intended to fertilize an eating apple tree that used to be on the plot.

I've been in two minds whether to keep it or not. It's an attractive little tree and the local wildlife enjoy it, but I can't eat the fruit.

Before I condemned the tree I decided to have a go at making apple jelly. Lots of cooks think it's best made with crabs and they do contain lots of natural pectin, the stuff that makes jelly or jam set.

The fruits, like the blossom, are deep pink, both inside and out. I picked all those that looked sound, which was about 3.5kg (6lb) of fruit.

To make the jelly I first washed and halved the fruit, cutting away only the bruised or damaged parts. The whole fruit gets used, cores, seeds and all.

It's then put in a large pan (I did it in two batches) with 300ml (1 pint) of water for each 450g (1lb) of fruit and brought to a gentle simmer. The fruit needs to cook for 20-30 minutes and is squashed with a wooden spoon or potato masher to release the juice.

The pulp is then put into a jelly bag strainer and left to drip for several hours (I left mine overnight).

Apples can have a second cooking to release more juice, adding half as much water 150ml (1/2 pint) per 450g (1lb). The pulp is strained again and the juice added to the first batch. I got about 3 l (5 pints) of juice.

To make the jelly you need 450g (1lb) of sugar for every 300ml (1 pint) of juice. First put the juice in a pan (not more than half full) over a gentle heat. When the juice is quite hot add the sugar and stir until it's all dissolved. Then turn up the heat and boil rapidly (called a rolling boil).

To test when the jelly reached setting point I used 2 methods. Firstly by temperature, using a sugar thermometer. It reaches setting point at 104-5 °C. I also used the saucer test. A blob of jelly is placed on a cold saucer from the fridge. Once the jelly has cooled the surface should wrinkle when pushed with a finger.

The hot jelly is then poured into sterilized jars and topped with wax paper discs and lids.

I ended up with 10 jars of beautiful pink jelly, and it tastes delicious. I like it spread on toast and have also used some in a sauce for pork chops.

First Harvest

I've reaped my first harvest, a lovely bunch of radishes. I ate them for my lunch in a mixed salad, and very nice they were too.

I'm off on my hols tomorrow. I'm going to Canada for three weeks, so I've been busy getting the allotment up to scratch before I go to give it a fighting chance of not suffering too much while I'm away.

The plot is looking pretty good at the moment. Most of the seeds I've planted are growing and I've now planted out the plants I started off on the kitchen window sill. Hopefully they will survive while I'm away. The pesky pigeons had been attacking my turnips but my son and myself made up some snazzy bird scarers to see them off and it seems to have worked.

My son wanted to grow giant sunflowers and giant pumpkins. We planted sunflower seeds and they are now sturdy seedlings and we cheated a bit and bought a couple of pumpkin plants from the allotment association. The pumpkins are doing well and if you look closely they are already starting to produce female flowers with little potential pumpkins behind them.

One of my allotment mysteries has been solved, I've met my neighbours. And no, I was wrong, they don't garden at night, just at different times to myself it seems. My mystery tree has now stared producing fruit and I'm still not sure what it is. Any ideas?

My potatoes are doing well and I'm really looking forward to eating some yummy new potatoes with butter when I get back from my holiday.

I have employed a couple of babysitters to keep an eye on things (my partners parents) and I'm sure they'll take good care of the plot for me. They have both been so helpful in getting the plot started and with their continuing support, I'm really grateful to them.

I'm sure it will be a fantastic holiday but I will miss the allotment and worry about what's happening on it.

How much will everything have grown when I get back? Will it all survive? Will my son's plan to grow the world's biggest radish come to fruition?!! Come back in three weeks to find out.......

Hard work and mystery

It's been a busy month with school holidays and sick children but although I haven't found the time to post I have been hard at work on the allotment.

It really seems to have paid off digging the plot over thoroughly and removing as much as possible of the pernicious weeds. Some are coming up, including the dreaded bindweed, But these have mostly been small weak specimens that are not too difficult to dig up and remove. Another plot holder just roughly dug his plot and covered it in straw and now there is a forest of bindweed shooting up all over it! (Thank goodness it's a few plots away from mine).

I've now finished digging over my plot and have been preparing the beds for planting next month. I've dug trenches for my french beans and planting pits for my courgettes and outdoor cucumbers, all of which are growing merrily on my kitchen windowsill. I've also covered the beds with a straw mulch to keep down weeds and retain water.

From the end of March I've been direct sowing seeds and was disappointed that nothing seemed to be growing. Last week on closer inspection I found that they have germinated, along with a good crop of annual weeds. So I've been busy weeding, thinning out seedlings and sowing more. I'm trying to sow secessionly every 2 - 3 weeks so that everything isn't ready at the same time.

I've planted a strawberry bed, thanks to my mum giving me some strawberry runners. I need to get a few more plants to fill it and think about netting. I'm told the local birds will gobble up the lot given half a chance.

I got my partner to turn the compost heap (there are advantages to being head gardener!) and was pleased to see it is breaking down well. My first load of Bokashi waste seems to have worked ok too. It was covered in the right kind of mould (white and fluffy, not green) and smelled like it was fermenting. I added it to the heap as it was being turned.

Finally we end with two mysteries.

My mystery tree is in full blossom. It's had lots of admirers but no one seems to know what it is. It's probably a crab apple, but hopefully it's something else that we can actually eat.

The other mystery are my neighbours to the left, who I've never met. I'm on my plot at different times and days of the week and in 4 months I've never seen them. Every now and then there has been signs of work being done, more so recently, but no sign of anyone doing it. I have a theory that they are gardening at night.