Got up early this morning to make lime marmalade before it bacame too hot. The limes come from a friend's tree; we were in her garden the other day and I pounced on them. They cost a fortune in the supermarket, but Maggie kindly gave them to me for free. So they've yielded 6 and a half pots of delicious marmalade. I made it with jam setting sugar, as my previous attempt at grapefruit marmalade availed me 8 pots of marmalade syrup; the stuff never set, and there's only so many things you can do with grapefruit syrup. My breakfast this morning was two slices of toast with freshly made marmalade - heaven! Lime is my favourite marmalade flavour (other than ginger) and every time you get a chunk of peel you get a real zap of intense lime flavour. So, thankyou Maggie - there is a large pot of marmalade coming your way.
The apricot harvest has been much better this year since I got a Moorpark tree to cross-fertilise my Trevatt. Moorpark is the better fruit for eating and looks better, but Trevatt has a great flavour for preserving (but you can eat them as well). This is the second picking, I've got three jars squirrelled away, and have eaten heaps. Of course they are a favourite with the birds, the ones at the top of the tree are now hollowed out.
Onions and part of the garlic harvest. Not a huge amount but much better than nothing.
Poppies drying for their seeds.
My spare bedroom has become a drying room for herbs. Oregano, thyme, purple sage, lemon verbena, lavender and rose petals. Smells nice!
Yum on the lime marmalade front.
ReplyDeleteI too have poppies drying, and hope to have a kazillion of them next year. Conservatively speaking.
And your spare bedroom would smell delightful. What do you do with the lemon verbena? I have used it in bath water (when I still had a bath). And for tea.