Ripenings

[bunn]

The North side of the hill, somewhat counterintuitively, is more sheltered than the South and West faces. Not only are the best rowan trees on that side, but I discovered today there are also a number of generously endowed crab apples. Shortly afterwards, I discovered that the pockets on my brown coat will take 2 and a quarter pounds of crab apples...

So, what to make? I still have a lot of rowan berries in the freezer, so rowan and crab jelly is possible (only, we already made 5 jars, and it's not something you want huge amounts of at a time). Or crabapple and mint jelly? Or just crabapple?

Also, the blackberries on that side of the hill are ripening already, even though the ones over the other side are still small and green. I would have picked some today only I didn't have anything to put them in except poo bags, and for one thing, blackberries are too squishy for bags, and for another, even though I know that brand new clean poo bags are really just bags, somehow there is an irrational ick factor to putting food in them.

Oh and the runner beans have started cropping, even though the poles blew over and I left them about 2 weeks in the rain before standing them back up again yesterday. Some of the beans were strangely bent, but they taste OK. Painted Lady is a very tolerant variety of bean, and also it has nice red-and-white flowers that the bees like.

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[bunn.livejournal.com]

... and now we have a further 5 jars of rowan jelly, plus a bowl of crabapple and geranium still draining...

I do plan to make some apple and mint. And some blackberry. And of course, there will be chutney later.

Aaagh, not enough jars!