Gonna Eat a Lot of Peaches...

Millions of peaches, peaches for me, or so it says in the song, and although I can't lay claim to millions,relatively speaking, I do have more peaches than I could normally dream of producing. I've never seen so many peaches on my peach tree. Normally we're lucky to get half a dozen, and then they rarely ripen properly. Now I know there are lots of lucky people out there who live in places where you can pick peaches by the bucketful every year, and think nothing of it. Not so here in England. We can do that with apples, pears, plums and many other fruits, but the problem we have here is that peaches flower very early in the spring, and unless you are obsessional about watching the weather forecast and hurtle off off down the garden in the dark with a a sheet of horticultural fleece if a cold night threatens, and then remember pollinating insects are also few and far between in early spring so you have to rush back down the garden next morning to uncover them  and possibly also help pollination with a little paint brush if you can, it's certainly not a plant and forget it type of crop.

But this year we had a really lovely warm spell in early spring, which  caused all kinds of odd things to happen in the garden, but the happiest outcome has been my wonderful crop of peaches. I did absolutely nothing to help them this year, no fleece, no paintbrush, but nature has rewarded me with these. I must have had this tree for fifteen years, I even dug it up and brought it with me when I moved here, so I'm extra pleased that it's done so well in the year we're moving away.  They're a bit small, some are a bit pitted and knobbly, and compared with the perfect giant blemish free specimens imported from the meditteranean and the USA they may seem rather unimpressive, but they are juicy and delicious, and all the more treasured for being so long arriving.

Here's the Millions of Peaches song, I never realised how many famous paintings feature peaches either!

Blueberries or Blackcurrants?

I don't really get blueberries. To be fair, I don't have the right kind of garden for them, they are ericaceous, or lime hating plants, in the same class as rhododendrons which also luckily don't grow here. So I have two blueberries in pots.

I got them because I kept reading how delicious/ fruitful/ good for you they are. And easy to grow. My two plants in pots did nothing the first year, so to give them more space I potted them in half barrels (old water butts that I sawed in half, and I used rather expensive ericaceous compost).  And they have produced a little fruit this year. Thing is though,I'm not impressed with the flavour overly much. And the quantity would have been fine if I'd been looking for the kind of quantity I need with say cranberries, (ie a couple of handfuls per annum for some sauce to go with the turkey) They are low acid, and therefore edible raw, but they tasted a bit dry mealy and uninteresting. Is it just me? Tesco's are selling them by the ton. It must be just me.

But give me a blackcurrant anyday. Now there's a proper berry. Juicy, tons of them on each bush, and enough acid to strip the paint off the garage doors. That's the kind of berry we like in England. There are some new varieties introduced in recent years that are meant to produce larger sweeter berries, such as Big Ben and according to Graham Rice's New Plant Blog on the RHS website can be eaten raw so I'm intending to give them a go, since my old plants are just that, getting on a bit, and producing less and less each year. I would also like to give Jostaberries a go since I heard Bob Flowerdew recommending them. And there's a man who knows his fruit, if not his hairstyles.

Blackcurrants make excellent jam, second only to damsons in my book, partly because they are strongly flavoured and highly acidic. But they also do very well in traditional English puds like Blackcurrant crumble, a great favourite of Him Indoors. You can even make your own Ribena, and I discovered by accident last year, that if you bottle some blackcurrant coulis you can make an instant dessert simply by mixing the coulis into a little ramekin of double cream. Blackcurrant coulis, by the way is not as complicated as it sounds, and is just a posh way of saying sieved stewed fruit. A recipe would be something like

Blackcurrant Coulis
8oz/250gr blackcurrants in a saucepan with a little water and sugar to taste. Probably about 3 or 4 oz.
Stir over gentle heat to dissolve the sugar then  bring to a gentle simmer for a minute or two, just enough to soften the skins a little, then pour into a processor and blitz to a puree.
Pour through a strainer to get rid of pips.
Bottle in hot sterilized jars, or freeze in little plastic pots.

Instant Blackcurrant Pudding
First of all I apologize for the name, it sounds like one of those horrible powder things you get in packets, but I can't think what else to call it, it's not a mousse, no air or whipping involved, it's not set with jelly or anything, just fruit and cream. Blackcurrant Cream maybe?

Pour some double cream into a ramekin dish, and stir in a few teaspoons of your coulis to taste. Miraculously the cream will thicken up as you gently stir, and voila, your dessert. I do like to understand how things work so if anyone can explain the science behind this miraculous transformation, I would love to hear it, (it doesn't seem to work with other fruits I've tried)- I'm not whipping the cream in any way, it's not curdling or separating at all, but it just thickens into a lovely creamy dessert.

PS did youknow that blackcurrants contain seven times as much vitamin c as apples? Considering that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, if you planted a couple of bushes of the new blackcurrant Big Ben, you could probably deter a whole range of NHS personnel in no time at all.

Cherries Jubilee and Other Incendiary Devices

You may think I'm going on a bit about cherries, but when you've waited as long as I have to get your hands on some of your own cherries, you certainly do want to make the most of them. I have frozen most of the crop in syrup in plastic boxes. It's worth getting one of these nifty cherry stoners if you have many to do as they get the stone out without wrecking the fruit. Also useful of stoning olives.

 They do take up quite a bit of freezer space like this, but I'm not intending they should be there for very long and the space they occupy will be vacated over the coming weeks. I'm not really keen on summer season fruits in the middle of winter anyway. They also bottle very well, and it's a good way of storing them.

Cherry jam is excellent and best made with Morello or sour cherries as they have better setting qualities. I mentioned Cherries Jubilee in my last post and it's a lovely easy pudding if you have some cherries in syrup either bottled or frozen, mine were frozen. I'm sure you'll be fascinated to know that the dish was invented by Escoffier for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897, and the original involves thickening the cherry juice with arrowroot or cornflour, which refinement will stretch your cherries to serve more people and looks nice, if you want to take extra trouble and do the flambe stuff. It's not recorded whether HM was amused...

Cherries Jubilee

Heat the thawed cherries in a small saucepan,and drain off the syrup. Spoon some good vanilla ice cream into individual dishes. In another small saucepan gently heat a sensible amount of brandy, and when it's hot put a match to it and pour it over the cherries, and then over the ice cream, watching out for people's eyebrows. If you're not of an incendiary frame of mind of course you can just heat the cherries and brandy together and pour over the ice cream, which is what I did and it tastes lovely. The pyrotechnic version is good for a dinner party although I recommend rehearsal first to avoid an unexpected visit from the Fire Brigade...

Once, years ago, I overfilled the petrol tank in my little car and parked it at a bit of an angle causing petrol to drip rather ominously from the petrol cap. It was a very hot day, and I was a bit concerned about the safety aspect being as the car was parked right outside my front door. So I phoned the Fire Brigade for advice, not 999 or anything you understand, just their normal enquiry number, and explained my concern. The nice man on the other end said I was right to be concerned, and that I should stay in the house and close the front door, and they would send someone along. Someone, he said. No sooner had I hung up the phone than a huge fire engine with sirens, flashing lights and the full works came hurtling down our little road, causing all the neighbours to come out onto the street to see where the fire was, and vast numbers of burly firemen running along, hoses aloft, ready to deal with the imminent danger to life and limb. Now I love a man in uniform, but I have to confess to being slightly overwhelmed and embarrassed at the response to my little domestic scenario. They were all lovely about it though, and said that I had done the right thing, and they had to respond in that way because  it could have been much more serious than it had seemed to me at the time. Apparently petrol being highly explosive, I could have blown up the whole street.
It must be great having me as a neighbour.

Fig Trees and The Sentimental Garden

You don't often see figs growing in England. Fig trees yes, but actual figs, not so often. The RHS says that figs will crop three times a year in tropical countries, twice in the mediteranean, but only once in cool temperate areas like England. The tree is hardy enough to withstand our winters happily, but getting some fruit is apparently, as with so many things in life, all in the timing.

Fig trees make an enormous amount of growth, and often sucker at the base - this tree in fact was a sucker that I pulled up from a tree growing in the garden of the French house we had a few years ago. So it's a kind of nice souvenir, although I don't know what the variety is, but it reminds me of those few balmy summers we enjoyed in the Charente every time I look at it. One of the differences between one's own garden and a public garden like the RHS (apart from the weeds) is that in our own patches we have some plants for sentimental rather than purely horticultural reasons. And there's nothing wrong with that. The Edwardian gardener Gertrude Jekyll would certainly not have approved, she said the gardener has to have a hard heart, and remove any failing plants and replace them with something better. And I can see her point, why struggle with a plant that is clearly unsuited to its surroundings. But we home gardeners have no paying clients to please and we can afford to be a  bit more sentimental, and persevere with our funny old fig trees and so on.

Anyway, according to the RHS, if you want to grow figs in England, the thing to do is to leave the little tiny figs that form late in the year, as next year they will grow and mature into your single crop.  My crop is, of course, entirely accidental, it  just seems to have turned out right. Now I'm hoping we have enough sun to sweeten and ripen them up by the end of summer.

New Toy

I've treated myself to one of these..

and no it's not some weird victorian medical contraption, it's a steam juice extractor. I bought it very cheaply on Ebay from a lady whose dad used to use it for wine making. I've got such a generous harvest of fruit this year, I thought it would be a useful bit of kit.

There's basically a pan at the bottom which you fill with water, then a second pan on top that collects the juice with a funnel in the middle that directs the steam up to the fruit which sits in the top layer in a basket. It's difficult to describe, you kind of have to see it to get how it works.

So far I've used it to juice a bucketful of gooseberries, from which I made an elderflower jelly which is as clear as a bell,

 and the remaining pulp I used for a batch of summer chutney.

It takes up quite a bit of room and will go in the garage in the winter, so no good for anyone pressed for space but so far I'm quite pleased with the results. Cheese and chutney sandwich anyone?

Home Made Yogurt With Garden Fruit

I have a feeling that yogurt is very good for you. I know this isn't really news, lots of other people think this and I also have no scientific basis for my view, but it's what I think. If it makes me live to a hundred and ten I'll be very pleased to have been right, if not, well it's still a delicious treat, so win-win (except I'd be dead...)

Anyway, I often make my own yogurt, partly because the Aga makes it so easy, and partly because if you make it yourself you can make it how you like. I like it thick and creamy, so I use full fat milk and I strain the yogurt, Greek style through a square of muslin or cotton. And the great thing about thick creamy yogurt is that is goes really well with the soft fruit from the garden, that's really coming into season now. If you don't happen to have an Aga lying about the place, you can use the airing cupboard, a slow cooker, or a large thermos. I say large because it's not worth making dribs and drabs especially if you strain it because the volume is considerably reduced. Also it keeps pretty well in the fridge - treat it as you would fresh milk.

Home Made Yogurt

4 pints of fresh full fat organic milk (I can't physically stop you from using low fat, but I would if I could)

A couple of big dollops of plain full fat yogurt, I use Yeo Valley, or Total,  about a third of the large tub in the picture.

Place your yogurt in a pristine mixing bowl, and whisk in the milk. Cover with cling film and place in a warm spot until thickened. It will depend on the temperature, but I usually leave mine overnight at the back of the Aga. It will be thickended but not very thick. Put it in the fridge to chill and it will get a bit thicker. You can use it as it is if you like, but I much prefer to line a large sieve or colander with a bit of scalded muslin or cotton, and pour in the chilled yogurt and leave. It takes a few hours, and you'll be left with a bowl of thick creamy yogurt and some cloudy water which is chock full of probiotics, and which you should give to your chickens, so that they will also live to a hundred and ten. Spoon the yogurt into another pristine container (I'm harping on about the cleanliness as it's quite important with any dairying process, try to think of yourself as a dairymaid in a Thomas Hardy novel..) and store in the fridge (not so Thomas Hardy but safe).

Flavoured Yogurt

Now for the best bit, yogurt for breakfast with some lovely soft fruit from the garden. With yogurt as thick as this, you can just add fruit as you fancy, just mash up a few raspberries and redcurrants a bit, add a little sugar or honey to taste and  use to top your little dish of yogurt. One other thing I like to do for a change from fruit is to scrape some seeds from a vanilla pod, and add to the yogurt with a little icing sugar to taste, Vanilla Yogurt, delicious!

Bird Deterrent Update

Just a quick update on the state of my cherry trees. I know how you worry about these things.

I'm not sure if it's because of the Whirring Blades effect of the plastic wire, or the plastic bags tied to the branches,but there is a definite sign of ripening on the fruit, ie it's still there, and hasn't so far been eaten by birds.  Not edible yet, but pinkish yellow, as opposed to greenish yellow which is about as far as we normally get.So progress on that front. I'm not about to count my chickens yet though, as I've done this in previous years, only to be disappointed in the end.

Some rain has fallen today, at last, but nothing like as much as was promised by the Met Office. I'm spending far too much time watering at the moment, instead of planting and weeding, especially weeding. After all these millions of years of evolution, you would think the weather would have worked out that it should rain during the night for an adequate period of time, and then be fine during the daytime. That would be much more convenient.

I have finally cleared away the last of the spring flowers,forget me nots have gone in the compost. Many spring flowers just fade away about now, snowdrops and primroses for example, but if you have any of the larger polyanthus, they tend to make large rather cabbagey leaves at this time. You can leave them in situ for next year if you don't need the space, but my Hose in Hose primroses are at the front of the border and I can put something more attractive in there for the summer. So I just dig up the clumps and plant them at the back of the border behind something tall, where they can spend the summer months. They are quite happy in a shady cool position provided they get enough moisture, and I will dig them up again in autumn and split up the plants and put them in their flowering positions ready for next year. Proper job, as they say in Devon.