A sense of change

Many people are commenting about changes in both activity levels and the feel to the season. The first frantic rush of digging, sowing and planting has past and there appears to be a short hiatus while seeds germinate, seedlings grow and need nothing more than to be watched and watered.

I can feel the seasons moving as well. Daffodils and tulips are almost long forgotten, petals fallen and seedpods lost in quickly growing grass. In two weeks, banks of nettles grew from several inches to several feet in height, hiding piles of stones and enclosing the damson tree and elecampagne at the Sanctuary as if they were the sole plants elected to flourish on that patch of earth.

In my home garden it has been the Swiss mint running rampant in the darkest bed, dwarfing valerian and hiding pale green elecampane leaves which are half the size, but double the number of their younger counterparts, introduced a year later to a much sunnier location. I had to cut back curling green fronds to let in light, thinking these ferns will soon be culled, since they add nothing to the medicinal, culinary or floral beauty of the garden and we need their space!

Clearing nettles behind one of the garden seats has led me to experiments in juicing for the first time, both nettles and cleavers. The juicer was not impressed. Tiny amounts of vibrant, dark green juice eventually emerged, but hardly enough to drink or add to anything flavourful. I may be more successful adding small amounts of herbs to smoothies, rather than forcing the juicer into overheated sulks with large volumes of plant material.

The hawthorn hedge has grown into a substantial tree, producing more blossom than I’ve ever seen before. Sitting outside in evening sun shine, you can smell the cherry aroma filling the air. I’ve started two jars of hawthorn tincture and another of infused vinegar.

Last night was the May meeting of the Mercian Herb Group. The title was “eating and drinking flowers” presented by Debs Cook. It was a lovely evening. Debs had grown some stunningly beautiful pots of flowering herbs in her green house – thyme, jasmine, ginger rosemary, heartease, clove pinks and chives to name but a few. Just looking at the beautiful flowers made you feel happy!

Debs made a wonderfully moreish cheese dip with cottage and cream cheese mixed with thyme and chive flowers. She also prepared a hawthorn blossom brandy which will be ready to use in brandy sauce and custard to pour over Christmas pudding - something I’d never thought of.

It’s amazing how stuck in your ways you become until someone jogs you out of it. I’ve always used vodka for may blossom and brandy for haws, now I shall have to try something different!

We drank newly made dandelion syrup, last year’s elderflower cordial, violet syrup Debs brought back from France and some of her homemade honeysuckle wine. There were also rose geranium and marigold cakes to sample, which left everyone with happy, sated smiles on their faces.

Thunder rolls around outside as I write, dropping torrents of water over Birmingham City Centre. Such frustrating weather after a possible sighting of sunlight half an hour ago. I thought perhaps we might venture into the garden once I returned home to clear the last patch of wilderness so I can plant out the pumpkins I bought some times ago.

I’ve never really had time to grow vegetables, apart from runner beans each year, but this year is different. We have a short, established fruit border containing a gooseberry and elderberry bush we brought with us from our first house in Selly Oak three years after we were married. (The theory was we couldn’t have children without a gooseberry bush in the garden. So, having moved in in 1980, Richard duly appeared in 1982!)

Chris adores raspberries, so two years ago I planted several raspberry canes in the hope we might get our own crop. The red raspberries were fine, but the yellow autumn gold were very sour the first year, but seemed sweeter last year. There are two redcurrant bushes I collected from a nursery in North Derbyshire, one early and one late. They both produced lots of redcurrants last year, but it doesn’t look as if all the flowers have set this year and some of the strings are half empty.

I decided to experiment with strawberries as well last year and they seem to be flourishing, with lots of flowers, complimented by a sea of alpine strawberry flowers and set fruits all around the garden.

This year I’ve planted a few cabbages, cauliflowers, lettuces, spinach, broad beans and peas. Some plants have disappeared in the night, but some are still with us, which makes me very happy,

My real joy is the runner beans. Every year my parents plant seeds for me and I collect the young plants when they’re ready to be placed in the outdoor bed. In January this year, I collected a whole pile of seed from last year’s crop when I finally took down the bean poles. I wasn’t sure they’d be viable, but I threw caution to the wind and planted up about 24 seeds in 12 pots on the patio just to see what might happen.

It was such a delight to notice one runner bean popping up in each pot at the beginning of the week after two weeks sitting quietly doing nothing. My parents will still be planting 25 more seeds for me in the hopes I may get an early and a later crop. Knowing our luck they will start producing beans as soon as we depart for Cornwall in August and I’ll return to an entire line of beans which have grown too hard to be eaten! Maybe this will be the year my children finally learn how to pick beans after so many summers of enjoying them fresh from the garden.

Quince – A Tale of Abundance

Many authors mention the ancient nature of the quince tree, Cydonia oblonga. They refer to biblical references about apples actually referring to quince, showing how the fruit of this small, deciduous tree has been valued for thousands of years.

I first came across quince when my friend, Jean, who was my child-minder for many years when Stephen and Kathryn were small, talked about making quince jelly for Christmas. My second experience was at a Herb Society AGM at Sulgrave Manor in 1998, when Jan Greenland produced a quince cheese. I was instantly hooked and the following year I planted a quince tree in the Sanctuary next to the main herb bed along with a meddler, an ancient pear.

Quince is related to both apples and pears. The five-petalled flower is pink tinged and as the year progresses, it turns into a small, green, lemon shaped fruit which eventually grows into a large yellow aromatic pear.

During my tree’s first year, the flowers dropped off and the leaves drooped. It wasn’t happy. Over the following years, it grew in size and always flowered, but produced no fruits.

This year was different. During one summer visit, I discovered a small fruit forming and was overjoyed. The next month, my father asked if I had seen my five quinces. This time I took pictures to record the momentous event.

At the end of October, one of the quinces had fallen off onto the floor, so we knew they were ripe to pick. The five quinces were reverently laid in a basket and more pictures taken. Then we brought them home and left them in the cool section of the fridge to wait until I could concentrate on turning them into jelly and cheese.

It would have been better if I had stored them in a cool, dark, dry place as they would have kept indefinitely. One of quinces was starting to go bad when I took them out of the fridge.

Surprisingly, Mrs Beeton doesn’t have any recipes for quince jelly, neither does the 1960s picture version of Good Housekeeping (my mother’s standard cookbook). I knew I’d seen recipes in my Good Housekeeping cookbook which I’ve had since before we were married, so even in the 1970s, people were using quinces.

I found another recipe on The Cottage Smallholder website which suggested cooking the quinces for many hours and using the juice for jelly and the flesh for cheese, which she referred to by its Italian name, membrillo. In the end, I used a combination of both recipes which yielded around 4lbs of cheese and 5lbs of jelly – not a bad quantity from 5 quinces!

Quince Jelly and Cheese

Wash the quinces. Chop into small pieces using a sharp, heavy knife as they’re very hard. I cored mine as I didn’t want the pips in the cheese, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to peel them either. Add the juice and grated peel of two large lemons. Cover them with cold water (I used 3 pints of water for 5 quinces). Bring to the boil and simmer on the lowest heat until the quince flesh is tender (between one and three hours). Strain.

You should use a jelly bag and strain overnight to ensure the jelly is cloudless. I didn’t have the appropriate equipment so I strained the juice into a plastic bowl and left it for a couple of hours so all the sediment fell to the bottom. Then I measured the juice and poured it back into the cleaned saucepan after I’d finished making the cheese, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the bowl.

Add 1lb granulated sugar to each pint of quince juice. Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved stirring with a wooden spoon continuously. Then heat to a rolling boil for ten minutes. Spoon several spoonfuls of jelly on to a pyrex saucer and place in the freezer to cool for 5 minutes. Keep doing this every five minutes until the jelly has a wrinkled skin over the top of it when you gently push it back with your finger nail. This is the setting point. Take the saucepan off the heat and pour jelly into sterilised glass jars heated in a low oven for ten minutes. Seal with jampot covers.

To make the cheese, place the quince flesh with a small amount of liquid in a liquidiser until you have a puree. Weigh the puree and return it to the saucepan with an equal weight of granulated sugar. (5 quinces produced 2 1/4lbs of puree and 2 ½ pints juice.) Cook on the lowest heat, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick or burn for another couple of hours. (I went away to start writing a new short story and returned for a stir every 15-20 minutes and it was fine.)

The cheese will turn a deep crimson and have the consistency of a thick soup you can stand a spoon up in. Apparently membrillo is cut into slices, so to achieve that consistency you need to cook it for at least three to five hours. I only cooked mine for two. You don’t need to cook at a rolling boil because you aren’t looking for a setting point. When the cheese is thick enough for your liking, pour into sterilised glass jars and cover in the usual way.

The cheese has a slightly gritty texture because of the stone cells which are also found in pears. It tastes aromatic and unique and very moreish! I’m looking forward to trying it with feta or other salty Greek cheeses. The jelly tastes very much like an aromatic pear and will be wonderful as an accompaniment to meat, cheese or just spread on toast.

Apparently the energetic properties of quince are linked to purification, protection and exorcism, but I prefer to look to the energies associated with apple – abundance. Quince is a veritable cornucopia and I am so pleased the tree has finally gifted me with its fruit.