Apparently, the first words little Jaya said this morning were “Daddy’s ice cream is so much better than Tesco’s or Bellis’s” I kid you not but she is right. Last night’s production ,pictured below, was blackberry and, having allowed myself a teaspoonfull, I can tell you it was amazing. It now goes in an increasingly ice cream packed freezer ahead of Sharestock when it will be served after supper. Also on the production line yesterday was damson jam. The harvest this year was dire and I had to scrounge fruit off a neighbours trees down by the river. and to chuck in a few of my plums. But, as you can see, we now have ten jars. And then to the orchard.
The apples in the old orchard are starting, a few weeks early, to drop. So the whole family picked the clean ones up, throwing those that were blemishd into the river for the fish. I also picked a few low hanging fruit. The red apple you see is a Discovery, the early fruiters I planted in a collonade along the river last summer. The one Discovery tree in the old orchard had just two apples which we picked to taste. They are good. So we can now harvest the rest with some trees already producing 10 to 20 apples. On Wednesday night all the apples picked will all go into the scratter and press and, fingers crossed, we will have our first twenty to forty bottles of juice ready for Joshua to flog on his croquet stand at Sharestock.
