Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Strawberries coming oot o' ma ears

The good thing about growing (and eating) your own is that you only eat fruit and vegetables which are in season.
Which, in my opinion, makes life a lot more exciting; mid winter you're really looking forward to the first fresh salad leafs, mid summer you're almost looking the neeps and tatties out of the ground and by the end of June you really want those strawberries to ripen.

And that's what is in season right now; strawberries, strawberries and more strawberries.
I wish we hadn't decided to plant over 120 strawberry plants.... And I'm not even the one picking them every single day!
My job is to make jam, lots of it, strawberry wine and eat them of course.
So, that's strawberries for breakfast, for lunch and as a snack in between.
And you know what? It's not even boring me yet!
That's probably because I've been waiting for fresh strawberries since last year November.
Apparently I miss strawberries for 9 months of the year. That's quite long, isn't it?!

Scotland is well known for its soft fruit and this year didn't disappoint. The reasonably mild weather and (sorry) the rain too, made for a bumper harvest of fruit.
So far, we've picked 8 kilograms (1.2 stone) strawberries, 1 kilogram (0.16 stone) raspberries, 6 kilo (1 stone) black currants and another whopping 6 kilo (1 stone) red currants.



This is not even all!

Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to use it all.
So far, I've made 18 jars of jam; our two favourite jams are 'The Full Minty' (strawberries, red currants and mint) and 'Currants in Black' (black currant).
Then we've also used 2 kilograms of the strawberries to make strawberry wine (another one of our favourites) and with the left-over pulp I make 'Some Like it Hotter' jam which is pulped strawberries, red currants, balsamic vinegar and black pepper.

Now we first go away for a short break, before I start making more jam.
I don't think I'll order strawberries with cream for pudding!

No comments:

Post a Comment