Autumn 2021 in our garden

 Today we picked our last grapes. They have been delicious and gave us  sweet (but small) fruit for more than a month. The blueberries finished about a month ago, but thankfully there was an abundance this year and froze a whole tub and they too finished this morning for breakfast.

The raspberries are still going but suspect that this week's crop is for snacking rather than fruit salads.

The apples have been amazing too, still some left for a daily Vitamin boost.

Pears were beautiful (finished the last one today) large and sweet but not many of them, we had to supplement them with pears from the shop.

Strawberries we abundant in June and we had a second flurry in the last few weeks. Just one or two a day, so a real treat.

All in all a great year of fruit in our small little garden, for which we are truly grateful.

Pears and apples from St Edmund College

 For the last 6 years we have had permission to pick the apples and pears from St Edmund College. This morning Mark and I went out to pick the sweet apples for Monday\s pressing.

The pears were ready to pick too and will be eaten for breakfast as they are too good to press.

Russian Apple cake

 Picking so many apples for juicing, I thought keeping some behind to make this Russian Apple Cake would be a lovely treat.

First apple pressing of 2021 with Kyosuke and Bella

 Yesterday I went to Lida and Graham and saw their lovely tree full of red apples.

They let me have some of them for our first apple pressing. Sadly they are thinking of taking the tree down to build an archive, so we need to enjoy the fruits even more. I also added some of Liz F apples, just to top it up so we can do 2 pressings.  The apples from Emma were good but too sour, I will use them once I find a tree with some sweet eaters (probably some of Githa's and Paul's)

Bella and Kyosuke came to help me press the apples into some lovely juice.

Courgette and apple chutney

I used Glo's pears and Tom's elderberries instead of dried fruit.

After a holiday I had taken my eye off the ball and low and behold I had some whoppers of courgettes. I also harvested some apples the other day and had some left over  so with today's from spade to plate group we made Courgette and Apple chutney

As this recipe asked for a lot of vegetables to be grated, Jenny and Peng Un were in charge of the food processor. Here they are in action

Meanwhile  June, Glo, Rozenn and Melendra, chopped and chatted around the kitchen table.

Sarolta mixed all the spices to go into the mix.  We mixed them all together and left it to marinate for 30 minutes whilst we headed to the allotment to pick the tomatoes and take in the autumn air. 

It was sunny and a lovely temperature, blessed again after such a wonderful summer.

We also went out into the back garden to pick more tomatoes, carrots  and basil for our soup.

For lunch we have some fresh tomato soup 
with some home made bread

Apple cider vinegar

As lots of apples have dropped of the cooking apple tree at my neighbours and the eating apples in the allotment, I have decided to make some apple cider vinegar with them.
I hope to have apple juice later in the month but for now I don't want to waste these windfalls.

I put some lids on top of the apples to stop them from floating and coming in contact with the air. I hope that the plastic has no effect on the outcome. We shall see in a few weeks time.

I did add some of the previous apple cider vinegar together with some honey so hopefully that gets the process going.

This is what it looks like on Wednesday 8th August

Is the stuff on the bottom the 'mother'?

I will have to wait and see at the end of the month if this is indeed the mother. By then I will be pressing apples again and make more of this amazing stuff.

Just back from holiday. Today is the 26th August and have tasted the vinegar and tasted lovely and fruity. Have composted the left over apples and made nearly 3 litres out of this batch. As I am planning to make another batch this week when apple pressing I will take some of this batch as a starter for more vinegar for the year ahead.

Even when on holiday I can't stop myself harvest abundant fruit

When I arrived in our lovely holiday spot in Holland, Loenen aan de Vecht, I noticed that a lane of apple trees along one of the main roads in the village was going to waste as they were full of (small) but ripe apples but no body seems to pick them.  So on my way to the shop I picked a few not too damaged ones in order to make some appel pannekoeken, apple flappen and apple carré.

At the shop I bought some flour, raisins and a pack of puff pasty. The following days, we had some delightful treats from apples that would otherwise have ended up in the Kliko (green wheeliebin).

I found a local juice maker  de Schulperij  who is happy press apples (if you can bring in a minimum of 600kg) you can make up your own label. A good idea if you club together with some neighbours who also have apple trees.

In the mean time we are enjoying those little apples in Loenen as part of our holiday activities.

First apple picking session of the season

Today after a day of heavy rain, I went to harvest the first apples of the season at Judy's.

We were amazed by the size and abundance of these beauties.

After an hour of picking and a lovely cup of coffee, we drove home with a car full of beautiful apples (eaters and cookers) 

Thank you Judy for letting Mark and I pick them, we plan to turn them into some delicious apple juice. I have already invited Ruth and the children to come and join me as they enjoyed it so much last year.

With the team: Yumi, Yuki, Sunny, Hanni and I we turned these into some delicious juice.

Drying courgettes, apples and bananas

With intense sunshine for a prolonged period, I have decided to dry my fruit and vegetables for use later in the year. I normally do this at the end of the season when I have a glut, but the glut has already arrived when it comes to courgettes, Eileen gave me a job lot of bananas and apples, so dried those too.

From Spade to Plate: Sundried apples and tomatoes

Making a sunbox

This morning I found a perfect box for my Sun box so I can dry my tomatoes

It was perfect because my oven tray fitted exactly and it was not too deep

I got some aluminium foil, scissors and spray glue to line the lids.

These are the apples I am drying in the sun, it is very hot inside it and expect them to be dry within hours

Here I am drying the apples on a rack and on sticks.

One day in the sun and Githa's apples became divine treats.