Thursday 25 August 2011

A shortage of jars....

Picked just over 5lb of damsons tonight and stewed them up with 1 1/2pt of water, a cinnamon stick and half a dozen cloves.

Went next-door to collect some jam jars for when I make jam from the stewed fruit, and what do you know - they'd given all their jars away. I dunno some people!  I even took round some yellow plum jam that I made earlier in the week..... tsk!

Saturday 20 August 2011

Back to your roots

The main crop potatoes and onions were dug up this weekend. Both crops produced huge veg (the OH's father was very impressed).... Trying to leave them somewhere to dry out was challenging, with all the summer showers!

The bed was dug over and green manure (some type of flowering clover) was planted. That should over winter (if it doesn't flower first) to be dug in, in the spring.

Friday 19 August 2011

Damsons are forever.....

Rightio so lets get started.... before the on call phone rang on Tuesday evening I dashed out, colander in hand, to pick some Damson's from the tree in the copse.  After some branch/hair attacks, I'd had my fill, so back inside to be washed and dried.
Ended up with nearly 4lb of fruit, some of which went on to the windowsill as it was still a bit too green.
Next googled some brandy recipes up and played with some weights, so now what I have is: - in one 500ml Le Parfit jar
  • 9oz of Damsons, washed, dried and pricked with a fork
  • 3oz Caster Sugar
  • 250ml Cheap Spanish Brandy!

And that's times three....
So we'll see what happens with that (after daily shaking for a week to dissolve the sugar).
Supposedly needs to be left for 3 months. Will see how that lasts.....