At this time of year there is always more fruit than it is possible to process and preserve. This has been a small torture in previous years but, gradually, we are coming to terms with the necessary waste and, whenever possible, we give fruit away to neighbours or bring baskets of windfalls back to the office in London. As the orchard grows in stature we plan to offer the pickings that we can’t use to local restaurants, and start juicing on a more regular basis.
Every autumn I make a number of preserves, both to stock the winter pantry and to provide Christmas presents for friends and neighbours. Last year it was bottles of pumpkin ketchup and jars of wild apple and rosemary jelly, the year before damson cheese and homemade crème de cassis and crème de mûres. This year the crabapples have been their most productive since they were planted 6 years ago, groaning under the weight of bright red fruits, and I couldn’t countenance leaving them all for the birds. I have always been a little daunted by the prospect of harvesting crabapples and it does take longer to harvest enough compared to regular apples. However, with a sharp pair of secateurs to hand, it only took me 30 minutes to collect 3 kilos, which is plenty for a good batch of jelly, producing plenty to give away.
It is difficult to give exact quantities for jellies, as the amount of sugar required is completely dependent on the amount of juice you can extract. The 3 kilos of fruit I collected produced about 6 kilos of jelly. Due to their high pectin content crabapples (and wild apples) make the best base fruit for other types of foraged jellies, as long as crabapples make up no less than half the combined weight of your fruit. You can mix them with brambles, haws, sorbs, sloes, rosehips and elderberries to make a mixed hedgerow jelly, or with any of these other fruits alone to produce a jelly that tastes more purely of the partner ingredient. I used the fruit of Malus hupehensis, which produces a vibrant red jelly. Less strongly coloured fruit, such as the yellow Malus ‘Evereste’, produce an amber jelly.
Adding spice in some form allows this jelly to cross over from a topping for bread or toast to an accompaniment to game, cold meats and cheeses. Bay and a little clove make this a good partner to cold ham, although rosemary and juniper would make it a good pairing with game. Add a few spoonfuls to the gravy from a braised pheasant or partridge before serving
Ingredients
Crabapples
Granulated sugar
Water
Bay leaves
Cloves
Method
Wash the fruit and chop coarsely. This can be done in a food processor. Put into a preserving pan and just cover with water. Add one bay leaf and 3 cloves per kilo of fruit.
Put on a low heat and slowly bring to a simmer. Cook gently until the fruit is soft and pulpy.
Allow the fruit pulp to cool slightly before pouring into a scalded muslin jelly bag. Allow to strain for at least 6 hours, or overnight. Do not squeeze the pulp or the jelly will be cloudy.
Measure the juice and put into a clean preserving pan and heat gently. Once the juice is hot add 450g of sugar for every 600ml of juice. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then bring to the boil, skimming off the scum that appears on the surface. Allow to boil for 10 minutes without stirring.
While this is happening put a small plate into the freezer. After 10 minutes of boiling test the jelly for setting by dropping a little of it onto the cold plate and returning to the fridge for a minute. The jelly is set when the surface wrinkles when pushed with a finger. If it isn’t set after 10 minutes then return to the boil and re-test every 3-5 minutes.
Once setting point has been reached allow the jelly to settle off the heat for a couple of minutes. Reskim again to remove all scum from the surface before pouring the jelly into hot, sterilised jam jars. Cover with waxed paper and seal with clean lids.
Recipe & photography: Huw Morgan
Half the hedges on the land are allowed a year off between cuts so that, on rotation, we always have some for flower and fruit. Allowed to grow out softly from the rigour of a yearly cut the fray of last year’s wood spawns sprays of blossom as the prelude to later bounty. When the hedges are still darkly limbed the stark white of blackthorn and then wild plum is forage for early bees. Later, freshly clothed spumes of hawthorn let you know where you have the Crataegus. This is one of the most steadfast hedge components and easily tended.
Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) follows where there is damp to sustain its particular preference, the lacy flowers like bonnets, brilliantly white amongst summer greenery. Sprays of dog rose (Rosa canina), arching free to present themselves later in June and July, start the relay between the three hedge rose species that are native. First R. canina (main image), then the Eglantine (R. eglanteria) with foliage smelling of green apples and finally the Field Rose, R. arvensis.
Come the autumn all of the above yield berries and hips, peppering the hedges with colour and providing feasting opportunities for wildlife. It is a vicarious pleasure to be able to contribute to this rich and connected network, linking one field with another, woods with fields beyond and shelter out in the open.
Crataegus monogyna – Hawthorn
Rosa eglanteria – Eglantine Rose
Rosa canina – Dog Rose
When we arrived here the hedges were not in good condition. Neatly trimmed on a yearly basis, the ‘broken teeth’ (where fast-growing elder had seeded in, outcompeted its neighbours and then died) were now home to bramble. A little bramble in a hedge is not a bad thing but, come the winter, their open cages offer little protection and their advance, like the rot in a tooth, is to the detriment of the whole. Since moving here I have slowly been improving the hedges by gapping up to remove the weak sections and interplanting with new whips of fruiting species to make good the mix; common dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) and guelder rose where the ground lies wet, and wild privet, the wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana), roses and spindle (Euonymus europaeus) where it is drier. I am happy with the hawthorn almost everywhere, but I’ve learned that the blackthorn should only go into a hedge that is easily cut from both sides.
Cornus sanguinea – Common Dogwood
Viburnum lantana – Wayfaring tree
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) – or the Mother of the Woods – is a runner and it’s thorny cage quickly forms an impenetrable thicket. Over many years the centre dies out and, because the thorns are wicked (indeed, a wound from them can quickly turn septic, so best to wear leather gloves when pruning), the centre of the enclosure is somewhere that becomes free of predators. Acorns transported by rodents or ash keys blown into the protected eye will be the start of a slower and ultimately outcompeting layer that, in time, pushes the blackthorn out to the very edges of the hedge and out into the fields to claim more ground. For this reason I have planted only a handful on the land, both for their early blossom and for the inky sloes that make a good addition to hedgerow jelly or for sloe gin, a favourite winter tipple.
Prunus spinosa – Blackthorn
Now that we have been here long enough for my originally purchased whips to have yielded fruit, I have started to collect the berries before the birds have them all in order to grow my own plants from seed and so that I can continue to plug gaps with my home-grown material. The seedlings of the Viburnum opulus, the roses and the spindle have been added to the edges of the Blossom Wood as the trees have grown up and begun to shade the original shrubs I planted there as shelter.
Viburnum opulus – Guelder Rose
The viburnum is a particular favourite, the translucent, bright scarlet drupes lighting up wherever the plants have taken hold. The Eglantine roses have also been good to have to hand as their perfumed foliage is a delight on a damp morning when the smell of apples lingers on the still air. They have been planted by gates, into hedges that we walk past frequently and upwind of wherever there is a place we use that is downwind of them. Interestingly – for deer generally target roses first of anything – the Eglantines have so far remained untouched. Is this just luck or is it the scented foliage that acts as a deterrent ? I have planted them by the entrance to the vegetable garden to see if they have the desired effect.
Euonymus europaeus – Spindle
Euonymus planipes – Photo by Emli Bendixen
Our native spindle (Euonymus europaeus) is one of my favourite fruiting hedge plants. The pink turban-shaped fruits rupture in October to reveal the contrast of tangerine seeds suspended within. It is a dramatic combination and my original whips have shown that there are many different forms, some with fruits a brighter colour, others a paler pink but with more prolific fruit. Raising from seed is always interesting for this variation and I’ve selected the best for those that will make a link to the garden. The garden is also going to be home to shrubs that fruit, such as Euonymus planipes, which will blend the ornamental into the land beyond it where things run wilder. There is another story to be told here, but it is hard not to mention this wonderful shrub. I have two plants, both seed-raised, and they too are showing differences. The deep magenta fruits – more elegantly winged than the native – and vibrant orange seed hang in foliage that colours apricot and the colour of melted butter.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
This year I have limited myself with the bulb orders as the newly landscaped ornamental garden is a year or so away from being ready for them. Bulbs are best placed where you know they can be left undisturbed so, in order for spring not to arrive without something new to look at, we have ordered a selection of tulips for cutting, a handful of Iris reticulata for pots and wild narcissus varieties to continue the ribbon that I am unravelling in stops and starts along the length of the stream at the bottom of the hill.
I started the ribbon when we first arrived, and have been adding to it every year with a couple of hundred bulbs. But that quantity of bulbs runs for just a small stretch, even if spaced in groups that smatter and appear at random among the leaf mould. So last year I grew impatient and ordered 500 and I’ve done so again this year to make the ribbon go the distance.
Our native Narcissus pseudonarcissus is most at home in open woodland where its young foliage can feast on early sunshine before the woodland canopy closes. I know them from Hampshire where they colonise hazel coppice on the lower slopes of the South Downs. Once they are established they clump densely, but the flowers rarely register as fiercely as the hosts of hybrid daffodils that you see littering parks in March. The wild daffodil is smaller in stature – just 30cm – and the flowers are fine, with twisting outer petals of pale primrose and only the trumpet a saturated gold.
Narcissus pseudonarcissus
Narcissus pseudonarcissus massed under the new coppice on the lower slope of The Tump
Unlike hybrid daffodils Narcissus pseudonarcissus is slower to establish and will often sulk for a couple of years before building up to a regular show of flower. No matter, it is worth the wait and I have already started my relay. The fourth leg runs into the area on the lower slopes of The Tump where the ground is too heavy for wild flowers and too steep for hay making and where I have taken some of the field back to plant a coppice. The hazel and hornbeam are just saplings, but it is good to think of the narcissus getting their feet in ahead of the trees.
About three years ago my parents bought me a sweet chestnut for Christmas, which I planted alone in the coppice. It will be allowed to become a standalone tree to pool shade in the future and rise up above the rhythm of the coppice as it ages. Here I have started a drift of Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus, the white-flowered form of the native, which has been in cultivation since the 17th century.
The elegant, downward-facing flowers are ivory as they open, fading slowly to a chalky white in all their parts. It is a beautiful thing and will be distinctive in the dim shade of the chestnut. I planted these bulbs as a memorial to my father who died the year the tree was planted and at the same time as the narcissus flower in late March. This variety is hard to find and this year I have only been able to source 50, but I am happy to add a small number annually. I like that it will take some time to come together and for the annual opportunity that this gives one to ruminate.
Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus
Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus planted around the sweet chestnut
The Tenby Daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. obvallaris, is the final part of this autumn’s order. This brighter yellow flower is also a native and, as its common name suggests, is most commonly found in Wales and the west. I have bought just a hundred and plan to trial it in the sun on the banks at the top of the brook near the beehive. Knowing your daffodils before you put them into grass is really important, as once they are in they are a nightmare to try and remove if they are wrong. I want to be confident that they aren’t too bright for their position and flare garishly where they shouldn’t. This will be my first time growing them for myself, so I want to get it right.
A square of lifted sod
Plant the bulbs two and a half to three times the depth of the bulb
I am planting a little late this year as the wild daffodils prefer to be in the ground in August or September. They will be fine in the long run, but the green leaf tips are showing already and I can see that it would be better for them to be drawing upon new root rather than the sap of the bulb to produce this growth. To plant I lift a square sod of turf by making three slits and then levering the sod on the hinge that remains uncut. I put the bulbs in three to five per hole and at two and a half to three times the depth of the bulb. The flap is kicked back into place and firmed gently with the foot to remove any air pockets. A moment or two stepping back and imagining the same scene on the other side of winter is a very satisfying way to finish the day.
Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan
Published 8 October 2016
A new month today and there is a chill in the air and the grass is heavy with dew. The trees are yet to show colour, but the autumn bulbs are up and pushing a flare of brilliance against the drawing back that is happening around them.
Today’s posy, the first of October, captures some of this late vibrancy. I have known and grown Nerine bowdenii since I was a teenager. Geraldine, our neighbour, had them growing in the root zone of a huge fig at the foot of a south-facing wall. The fig had long outgrown any ambitions to be trained, but its lofty frame allowed you to walk underneath it and the sun to slide in and bake the ground at its feet. A good baking is what Nerine like as it makes them feel like they are not so far from their origins in the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa. They grow there in rocky ground and, though they are capable of surviving a -15°c chill, a free-draining soil and reflected heat will help them to flower better here in Britain.
Nerine bowdenii
I have a collection of plants gathered from here and there as I have come across good forms. The best – the pure white ‘Blanca Perla’ and palest shell pink ‘Ostara’ – are kept in pots and brought up to the side door to keep us company when they are in flower. A mixed batch, which I bought unnamed and which range from white through to a hot sugary bubble-gum pink, are planted at the base of my espaliered pears in the Kitchen Garden. They get the benefit of a south-facing position, the radiated heat from the wall and, importantly, an absence of competition. Their foliage, which needs all the light it can get, hates to be overshadowed by neighbours so keep them to the front of a sunny bed if you want to grow them in company.
Nerine bowdenii ‘Blanca Perla’
A row of Geraldine’s bulbs, which I have moved about with me from garden to garden over the years, are shortly to be transplanted to their new position from the stock beds. The best time to move them is immediately after they have finished flowering as their foliage is becoming dormant then. I will move entire clumps and not divide them, as they flower best when in a tight community. Established clumps will tell you how they like to live, for the bulbs will mound up out of the ground to sunbathe rather than dwell below the surface as most bulbs do. I will plant the clumps on a hot, south-facing slope where the sun slides in under a limbed-up holly. Though there is the necessary light for baking the conditions are tougher there and the bulbs will put more energy into flower than leaf.
Nerine bowdenii ‘Ostara’
The flowers rise up as the summer foliage is waning and sap the last of its strength in the process. Tall stems – sometimes as much as a couple of feet – stand alone by the time the flower sheaths split in response to the flowers’ swelling. They are in flower for weeks, from early in September in some years, running on well into November if the weather is kind. As cut flowers they can last a good fortnight in a vase.
Schizostylis also hail from South Africa. In contrast to Nerine their foliage is almost evergreen, but they also hate competition and will fail to flower if overshadowed. However, here the parallel ends. They prefer damp ground or certainly moisture-retentive soil, so the posy makes a combination that is good for colour contrast, but not really achievable in the garden. That said, I have them here on the south-facing slopes and the plants have not complained in our hearty loam. They were given to me as spring divisions by Josie and Rachel, our neighbours up the lane. They run through their garden in drifts, appearing with asters and colchicum. So far, in the four years I have grown them in one place they have not needed dividing, but everything points to the plants needing it soon and they let you know when with shy flowering.
Schizostylis coccinea ‘Major’
Schizostylis coccinea ‘Major’ is probably the best and most commonly available form. The satiny flowers are a gleaming brilliant red. In the past I have experimented with ‘Sunrise’, a soft apricot-pink, and have ‘Mrs. Hegarty’ – a pale shell pink – from the same neighbours, but both seem to be shy-flowering in comparison. I may simply have not found them a home that suits yet. My rule is that you have to move a plant at least three times to give it a chance of finding its niche, so I’m holding on final judgement for the moment.
Salvia ‘Jezebel’
The Salvia ‘Jezebel’ is part of a salvia trial I’m running to find the good forms of Salvia greggii and it’s closely related cousins. The plants were selected from Dyson’s Nurseries three years ago now at the Dixter Plant Fair (running this weekend) and the best have proved themselves already. Bushy by nature and happy to live in your hottest, driest position, I have found they are excellent in pots or for prolonging the flowering period of a woody herb or mediterranean combination. ‘Jezebel’ has outgrown her neighbours, rising up to 90cm over the summer and flowering continuously since July. If you brush against them the sticky foliage and bronze calyces smell of blackcurrants and spice. The flowers age from a vivid cherry-red to a slightly softer pink before they fall. The bees love it and I know already that it’s a keeper.
Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan
My childhood interest in cooking was first encouraged by my maternal grandmother. When I was about 7 she taught me how to make scrambled eggs on toast. Then, during our summer holidays on the Gower, she followed this with instruction in the cakes from her pantheon of Welsh standards – Bara Brith, Welsh Cakes and pikelets – and, from Marguerite Patten’s ubiquitous wartime cookbooks, she introduced me to the classics – scones, jam tarts, rock cakes and Victoria sponge cake.
When we started to travel further afield to Brittany for our holidays I was always drawn to sample the baked goods; proper butter croissants and pains au chocolat at the ferry port, quite unlike the frozen Pilsbury Dough ones I had eaten at home, palmiers, millefeuilles and éclairs from the patisserie near the camp site, and from the markets we would buy buttery Gateau Breton, custardy apple cake and indulgent kouign-amann. Brought up on Cadbury’s Mini Rolls and Mr. Kipling’s Fondant Fancies these cakes were so exotic to me that I would return home wanting to try and make them.
At 17 I went to Austria on a student exchange and here I discovered a whole other world of cake; Sacher Torte, Linzer Torte, Apfelstrudel, Marillenknödel and Zwetschgenknödel (potato dumplings stuffed with whole apricots or plums respectively) and my first proper baked cheesecake studded with juicy raisins, which was a far cry from the chalky refrigerated ones with their gelatinous fruit toppings that I was familiar with. However, the cake that lodges most firmly in my memory is the Mohnkuchen I ordered in a Café-Konditorei in Salzburg.
When I saw it on the menu I asked my host family what Mohn was. When they explained that they were poppy seeds this seemed to me so sophisticated and unusual an ingredient for a cake that, with my awkward teenage desire to appear sophisticated and unusual, I ordered it. When it arrived at the table my suspicions were confirmed by its rather austere appearance, and its minimal crust of translucent water icing. It was the early ‘80’s and I thought my grey cake was unutterably chic and I was (perhaps rather too) pleased with myself for having ordered it. My palate was then educated by the discovery that this cake was primarily a textural experience; the somewhat challenging gritty feeling in the mouth and the ephemeral bitterness of the seeds making me sure that this was a cake for grown-ups, not children. An acquired taste.
The recipe below is an amalgamation of several recipes I have tried in an attempt to reproduce that first piece of Mohnkuchen. The flavouring should be subtle, not too heavy with either vanilla or lemon, so that the delicate flavour of the poppy seeds comes through. It is essential to grind the seeds in either a mortar and pestle or a clean coffee or spice grinder as, from experience, the blade of an electric food mixer is not up to the job. You will need to grind the amount of seed required for this cake in batches. You want to achieve the texture of wet sand, with a good balance of ground and whole seeds. When we have a good opium poppy harvest I take pleasure in using our own seed but, with the amounts called for, you need to have quite a poppy patch to produce enough.
I use a richer yogurt icing here, which makes this more of a special occasion cake, but it is still very good with the traditional light water icing which, in Austria, is sometimes flavoured with rum for a truly grown-up cake.
Ground poppy seeds
Serves 12
Ingredients
CAKE
150g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
5 large eggs, separated
75g plain flour, preferably Italian 00
75g ground almonds
180g poppy seeds, ground
120ml plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of half a small lemon, finely grated
ICING
6 tablespoons natural yogurt
Juice of half a lemon
100g icing sugar
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Butter a 22cm round cake tin and line with baking parchment.
Beat the butter with the sugar and vanilla extract until pale and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Beat well to incorporate fully before adding the next one. If the batter shows any sign of curdling add a teaspoon of the flour and beat until smooth.
Stir in the yogurt until well combined. Then fold in the flour, ground almonds, poppy seeds and lemon zest.
Beat the egg whites into soft peaks. Gently fold these into the cake batter a little at a time until fully incorporated.
Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out with just a few crumbs attached.
Allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then remove from the tin, take off the baking parchment and put on a cooling rack until cold.
To make the icing, in a small bowl stir together the yogurt, lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth. Pour onto the cake and spread out with a palette knife, encouraging it to flow over the edges. Decorate with poppy seeds.
Recipe & photographs: Huw Morgan
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