The weather was lovely, I had spent most of the day relaxing and reading, and suddenly when I walked through the courtyard I suddenly noticed the blackberries had ripened and were ready to pick.
We don’t have a lot of blackberries, and our fruit bushes in general are terribly unkempt which clearly doesn’t improve the yield, but I got a nice little bowl of blackberries, just enough to warrant making jam!
A bowlful of blackberries, a couple of handfuls of preserving sugar and a tiny dash of water, boil it until it sets quickly when tested on a refrigerated plate and then pour into sterilised jars.
Hopla! Two jars of preserved summer and sunshine to be enjoyed on warm home-baked rolls this winter!
I also picked a few handful of green and purple French beans, blanched them and put them in the freezer, and I picked the dried pods off the peas and shelled them so I can try sowing them next year.
But summer shouldn’t just be about preserving; it should also be about enjoying transient beauty, right? Since I had to go back to town Sunday late morning for the leaving-do of a friend who is moving abroad, I figured I’d bring her a random bunch of whatever is flowering right now:
Crocosmia, goldenrod and gladiolus, with a random Mexican tiger flower from a pot in the courtyard. When I picked them I didn’t actually have any idea that I would end up with a colour scheme that looks intentional, perhaps even coordinated.
(All right, I also picked some sweet peas, but since their stems are so short they ended up as an additional posy.)
This is the sort of wild life I lead… Riveting, isn’t it?
Well it’s just a matter of what you are comparing. And how you feel. My idea of fun is to write all morning (fiction or blog posts) and to garden all afternoon. And to cook occasionally. — The gold & orangey bouquet was awesome, and those berries remind me that I need to go harvest the ones ripening outside!
You make me jealous… To me, that sounds like an absolutely wonderful life, though I’d probably run out of things to write about.
The berries look so plump and juicy, I can practically taste them through my laptop screen! What a wonderful thing to do on a Saturday night.
They were absolutely delicious and begged to be preserved to add some sunshine to a miserable and dark winter day. And I had fun making it!
Wow! You have a lot of blackberries. I only have mulberries and never enough to do any canning.
It’s not actually that many; the smallest jar is not even 4″ tall, and the bowl in the first picture is the size of a medium dinner plate… But as I don’t eat a lot of jam, this should be plenty for me to get through the winter, especially as I also have my strawberry jam and my rhubarb marmalade.