Wild bounty
Despite all the doom and gloom of Jackie’s last post, plenty of plants have in fact done very well this summer, many of them without any help from us. Our little plot of land doesn’t have a fence to keep the wild things at bay but we are completely surrounded by a wall of brambles. And, despite this summer’s heat we have had another bumper harvest of blackberries. It’s the one thing Jackie hasn’t made a preserve of but I love to make my favourite dessert – blackberry and apple crumble. We get the apples from our own tree but there are also loads of apple trees around here on the dog walk. So I managed to scrump many more, enough to make some cider. Last year it was pretty good so fingers crossed.
Despite the grape vines on the pergola not doing so well, there is an old vine growing over one of the walls. As opposed to the ones we planted which produce large grapes for eating, this one has produced loads of small grapes.
Most of the locals only grow two things, grape vines for wine and olive trees for olive oil. Their grapes are all small so I guess the one we have must be of the same variety and also good for wine, so I’m having a go. In essence wine making is extremely simple (certainly as practised by our nearest neighbour Luis). Just crush the grapes, filter out the gunk and just let it do it’s stuff. There is enough wild yeast on the surface of the grape to ferment the juice. You just need to keep the fruit flies out or you will end up with vinegar. As you might expect, some people take a bit more care than Luis and I am being guided by an excellent little book: “First steps in wine making” by C.J.J. Berry. The price on the back is 6 shillings but as they have been making wine for centuries, I’m sure not that much has changed since this little gem was published. If nothing else, it is an interesting read. As opposed to Jackie’s elderberry wine, which is ready now, after a year in the bottle, the grape wine should be ready in weeks. Again, fingers crossed.
Probably the biggest surprise has been the peaches. We’ve got three peach trees on our land, all of which have just grown on their own and although peaches have always made a start they have never come to fruition, until now. There is quite a large tree next to the well and every day a load more fruit fall off it. I have to say that 99% of the peaches have worms inside, so it’s taking a bit of a chance to eat one straight away but it’s no problem to cut out the bad bits and be left with plenty of good flesh.
This time, I decided to get involved in the dark arts of chutney making and I’ve made three jars of peach and pepper chutney (with our own red peppers). Jackie couldn’t resist of course and has also made some chutney – peach and chilli (with our own chillis). We will find out in a few months who is the peach chutney king or queen. And there are still more peaches left, so as well as bottling a few, I’m making an experimental peach and blackberry crumble this afternoon and no doubt a few more will make their way into a peach cordial.
Fig trees grow wild round here and have had another good season. So far we’ve only had them fresh off the tree or in fig tarts. We’ve got loads of jams of various flavours already and I think Jackie is preserved out at the moment but we’ll have to see what else we can do with them.
So never mind being busy with the veg patch, there is plenty of wild fruit to be collected as well. I cast an eye over the garden and note that next up, it’s the walnuts…
