We're jamming. . . . .

Welcome back to our allotment retreat. Two updates in one day - Crikey!As detailed earlier , I set off this morning to forage for some more free fruit. Armed with a couple of cloth bags, i never imagined that i would collect what is probably 20 pounds of yellows, And 20 pounds of reds! The bag pictured here is a "Tesco Bag for Life" , and its about 6" deep with fruit! Probably about an hours worth of picking. There were a lot of fellow foragers there today, one guy in his late seventies telling me he's been collecting this fruit there for more than 20 years!
This bag(Iceland version) is also about 6" deep with fruit. There was a greater demand for these, and I had to jostle with others to get a good spot. I found one after a short break, and collected this haul in about 30 minutes. The branches were literally overloaded with fruit. After nipping in to town to buy sugar, and a couple of other treats for wifey, we headed home to the stove. Thats the royal "we" of course. Jen made a 5lb batch from the yellow plums first, as these are the most ripe. The aroma was sheer bliss as they boiled on the stove, and the finished jam was a lovely golden yellow in colour.

When buying the sugar, we found good old Tate & Lyle granulated at 80p per Kilo in Wilkinson's, that's the cheapest we have found. Let me know if it can be bought cheaper - we need rather a lot!

Wilkinson's have also started their seed sale, and we picked up all these packs at half price. These will be stored away for next years planting, the plan of which is forming in our minds !

Thats all for now, but pop back soon to find out what else we concoct with our haul of free fruit!

Take care all, and enjoy your gardening.

TTFN.

More Free Food!

Welcome back to our allotment retreat blog. Yesterday we popped out for a walk with the sole intention of finding & picking some Blackberries, with a view to making a nice pudding for dinner today. In true Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstal tradition, we stumbled upon more than we had bargained for. Having already found one site full of Cherry Plum tree's, we hardly expected to find even more, but were pleasantly surprised to find about a dozen tree's within a stone's throw (no pun intended) from our front door! All the tree's are heavily laden with delicious small fruits, and there are approx 3 varieties to choose from. The tree's are on "Common" land which in my opinion makes them ideal for picking. There was evidence that other people have been doing the same, and we intend to gather some more today. As for recipe's, a quick internet search revealed more ideas than you can poke a stick at. All we need to do now, is accumulate a load of empty jam jars! Maybe an ad in a local shop window will suffice ?
A couple of recipe's that caught our eyes were for Plum Chutney - that sounds nice.

That's it for now, but pop back soon for more updates on our free food foraging, as well as more from the plot.

Take care all,

TTFN.