2015-08

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The Pleasure of Chutney Contentment is … opening the door on the cellar head, in the autumn, and seeing chutney, jams and pickles staring back at me from the shelves. The jars represent months of work – sowing, planting, weeding, picking and preparing the fruit and vegetables before they are jammed, pickled and chutneyed. This is a labour of love and great to have enough to share with friends and family throughout the months when fresh fruit and veg are in short supply in the allotment. A taste of summer fruit on freshly baked bread or tangy pickle with cheese is a real treat in the winter months. All the jars on the cellar head will last for at least a year and only natural ingredients! Beetroot ChutneyRecipe Ingredients: 2lb raw shredded or grated beetroot 1lb onions skinned and chopped 1 and a half lbs apples, peeled and chopped 1lb seedless raisins 2 pints malt vinegar 2lb sugar half an ounce of ground ginger Method: Place all ingredients in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer until soft and pulpy (about an hour) Put into warm, sterilised jars and seal. Keep for at least one month before eating Tips when using screw-topped jars: zzOnly use jars with dimple safety button screw tops. zzKeep the correct lid with the jar, this makes for a better seal. zzFill hot jars with hot jam or chutney and put the lid on straight away. This means you don’t have to put anything on top of your jam/chutney such as greaseproof paper discs. As the contents cool the dimple button will be sucked down as a vacuum forms making a popping sound. This never fails to make me smile – I can hear it wherever I am in the house – sometimes the simplest things give the greatest pleasure. Happy preserving! Joy Winks St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA Tel: (0114) 274 5<strong>08</strong>6 Page 20 email: office@stchads.org website: www.stchads.org
The thing about growing fruit and vegetables is that you never stop learning, experimenting, trying something new. Mysteries remain unsolved. We have lived in our house for over 25 years now. Two apple trees continue to produce a bounty of fruit every year. One is a Bramley, the other James Grieve. Bramleys store in the shed for up to 6 months. A single redcurrant bush also thrives after all this time. A gooseberry bush, which struggled in the garden, now excels at the allotment. So at least 30 years of fruiting. Yet, my newer bushes produce plenty of leaves but little fruit. Netting is needed on gooseberries, red and black currants, to stop the birds eating the buds and fruit, while I get raspberries from July to October with no netting at all. I have an end plot which means I have to keep cutting back trees, but also means I get brambles producing blackberries. My two favourite fruit are blackberries and rhubarb. They can be frozen and used to accompany any other fruit in a crumble or pie. Our favourite at the moment is rhubarb and strawberry. Fruit plants are low maintenance, compared to vegetables. Perhaps this is why, in their perverse logic, the council insist that allotment holders contract to grow more vegetables than fruit. Permission has to be sought if you want to plant a fruit tree. Fruit comes along every year at the same time with little effort, but with vegetables, it seems a constant battle to nurture them. Wouldn’t it be great if all vegetable plants were perennial so you just had to wait and pick them, instead of regrowing every year. But that would defeat the main objectives of gardening which are to get yourself plenty of fresh air, sunshine on your back, healthy exercise and peace and quiet. A flask of coffee, the sound of Radio 4. What bliss! Our allotments have quite a diverse group of growers now. Old men no longer predominate. There are probably more females than males now and lots of families. I have to admit that I tend to prefer the quiet and tend to visit during the week when the kids are at school. However, I hope I am a sociable person, and I enjoy a chinwag with fellow growers. Sometimes you can’t get away if someone prefers talk to work! We don’t seem to get the politics or fallings-out witnessed in other allotment areas. During my allotment experience I have seen lots of sharing of ideas, offloading of spare vegetables, loaning of tools and equipment and a great deal of mutual respect. Long may it continue. David Manning Cultivating Fruit St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA Tel: (0114) 274 5<strong>08</strong>6 Page 21 email: office@stchads.org website: www.stchads.org
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