As I waited for the pasteurisation of the juice to complete late last night, I threaded another 60 chillies and hung them up to dry. There are now about 140 threaded, 40 more waiting to be threaded and, I guess, 300 more in the garden turning redder by the day and awaiting harvesting. We are still working our way through last year’s dried chillies so I guess what I am producing now will make even more Christmas presents to go with surplus apple chutney and the usual Greek Hovel olive oil.
Meanwhile, with the damsons more than ripe, I gathered the last of them still on the tree and added them to my latest apple juice press. It made absolutely no difference to the colour so will need explicit labelling as I store more and more bottles of juice in the larder. The taste is just that bit sweeter and so will, I am sure, appeal to Joshua. The apple harvesting season is still underway and weather permitting Ib shall fill two more 25 litre buckets, with apples from the old riverside orchard, this weekend to turn into another 12 litres of juice.
