Making Apricot Wine

Homemade apricot wine fermenting in a demijohn

After making two batches of apricot jam, and with our neighbours still offering more fruit, we decided to look for other methods of apricot preservation. One of my first ports of call is always Brian Leverett’s Winemaking Month by Month book. As usual it didn’t disappoint. Leverett’s standard apricot wine recipe calls for sultanas to improve the body of the wine. However, he does offer a variation of the recipe which doesn’t use any sultanas, instead using more sugar than the standard recipe. Leverret says that wine made by this variation of the recipe lacks the body of the standard,…

All from the borders of the vegetable patch - great fun for adults and younger helpers alike!

I took a day’s holiday from work today as we had things to do in the morning. We had finished all of the important things we had to do by late morning, so we took the opportunity to get the kids out into the garden to harvest some soft fruits. We have several plum trees in and around our garden that are laden with ripe plums. In truth there are too many, they are mostly self-seeded and are too close together. Lately when I’ve been working in the garden they’ll be a small thudding sound every five minutes or so,…

The first instalment of apricots from our neighbours.

Our neighbours have had a really good crop of apricots this year and have been donating us their surplus in instalments. They also offered us their tried and tested apricot jam recipe. It is pretty much the standard a pound of sugar per pound of fruit recipe, but they were quite specific on how to process the kernels, and how many to use. We love jam in our house. The children particularly love it. Thinking about it from a child’s point of view, what’s not to love? It’s fruit and sugar, probably their favourite ingredients in the world aside from…

A donation from a neighbour - some windfall apples and some overripe gooseberries.

The gardens here are filled with apple trees. It was a beautiful sight when we moved in back in May and they were all in blossom. It’s beautiful now too, as the fruits are really starting to fill out and the different varieties are starting to show their own traits. We had strong winds the weekend before last, and one of our neighbours gave us some windfall apples from her trees. This time of year they are nowhere near ripe and so far too tart to eat raw, but she wondered whether we might find a use for them. Now…

The pumpkin patch is coming on leaps on bounds.

Just a quick update from the garden. It’s amazing how much it’s come on in the two months since we really set to work. Particularly the crops that we didn’t plant until we moved in, for example everything in the pumpkin patch (every single plant in the image above), the runner beans, potatoes, beetroot and parsnips, to name but a few. Much to the kids’ excitement we’ve recently started harvesting our blueberries (potted plants we brought with us). Our potatoes have started dying back too, so the kids can get their hands dirty harvesting them soon (probably their favourite garden…

Charred, soft, moist and slightly salted courgette slices.

Last weekend we harvested our first courgettes of the year, and we’ve been doing so regularly ever since. The week before had been a busy one for me, and I’d barely found time to get out into the garden. I’d seen that there were some courgettes just about ready, but I left them for the weekend. The weekend came and we were away visiting family all day Saturday, and it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I got out into the garden. There had been a lot of rain on Friday and Saturday (I’m sure I heard somewhere that we had…

Galina tomatoes (left), a Siberian large yellow cherry tomato with a long growing season.

I thought I’d take a little time to post about the variety of tomato that I have probably grown in more seasons than any other: the Galina tomato. This is a potato-leafed vine variety that produces high yields of large yellow cherry tomatoes. I have grown these every year since 2011 (making this the fifth successive year). When I first grew these I had never tried a yellow tomato before. That was part of the appeal – that year I also grew Black Cherry and Green Zebra tomatoes. Over the last couple of years I have noticed supermarkets starting to…

Homemade carrot wine fermenting in a demijohn

I’ve never made carrot wine before, but I have been tempted. I was recently passing a farm that was selling feed carrots for £1.50 a net. I decided to invest this small sum and try to put the carrots to the best use I could. The majority were used as food, but I thought being in possession of so many small and forked carrots was the perfect excuse to give carrot wine a try. I searched online and found a recipe that was being raved about. Generally I refer to Brian Leverett’s Winemaking Month by Month book for all things…

A young medlar growing on our patio medlar tree.

Growing your own can be disheartening sometimes. A couple of my runner beans suffered minor attacks from snails when they were in pots on the patio, but the vast majority were pristine. Within a couple of days of planting them out into the vegetable patch, every single one has been attacked by slugs/snails, and is covered with blackfly. As things stand they look like they’ll all survive, but it can be demoralising. But, just when I’m reflecting on the prospect of not getting the harvest I imagined from a particular crop, I’ll see a sight elsewhere in the garden that…

The area now prepared with a grand total of 7 squash, 5 courgette, 1 pumpkin and 1 patty pan plants all in position.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the garden. Aside from the mammouth tasks of weeding, watering and generally tending to our plants that are already in their final positions, we’ve also planted a lot more out. Our most noteworthy achievement in the last fortnight is probably that we cleared the remainder of the pumpkin patch. We have now, for that whole square area that was lawn, removed all of the turf, turned the soil, forked in manure, made ridges for the plants, and planted out something into all but two of the positions. These final positions will be…

Slightly Self-Sufficient

Tasting The Good Life

Making Apricot Wine

A Fun Day Harvesting in the Garden

Apricot Jam Recipe

Putting Windfall Apples to Good Use

Early August Garden Update

Griddled Courgettes

Galina Tomatoes

Making Carrot Wine

Sights That Made Me Smile

The Garden – A Quick Update