Summer bottling

One sunny day last week, the owlets and I wandered home from the playground past an old tree dripping with tiny plums... We filled a hat and nibbled them along the way. An hour later Huz walked in from a day in the bush. "Guess what I found?" He said as he lowered 5kg of plums onto the counter... then showed us his hat-full of yellow plums... and the kg of cherries he bought....


So guess what I've been up to?



ETA- just for you, C... My usual recipe is - heat fruit until the juices start to bubble out a bit, add half the weight of the fruit in sugar (so 2 parts fruit to 1 part sugar - most recipes call for equal parts, but we haven't needed it that sweet). If I'm making berry or apricot jam I add a lemon, cut in half. I squeeze it a bit before I throw it in the pot. If its plums, no need for lemon, it sets on its own just fine. Bubble away until a blob dropped on a cold saucer doesn't run but forms a skin when tipped, or if I run a fingernail through the middle of it, the little gap stays there. Fish out the lemon and bottle in sterilised jars.