May 2018 in pictures

The bluebells were starting to take over the herb patch and were probably responsible for killing off the chives, which had been there for years. They might be pretty but they were in the wrong place so out they came. In any case, they were the Spanish bluebells and not the native English variety.

After a late start, because of the consistently cold weather, the lettuces and peas are catching up in the gro-beds and I've risked planting out the first few tomato seedlings. The overwintering onions are also starting to fill out. 

In the main part of the garden the broad beans (Eleonora) are doing well. This is the first time I've tried to grow them. Underneath the beans I've scattered some mixed salad leaves seeds together with some carrots.

By the end of the month the beans had really taken off, the potatoes in the grow sacks are surging ahead and the overwintered garlic looks as though it will soon be ready for harvesting.

The rhubarb now seems well established and there was enough for me to experiment and make some rhubarb and citrus marmalade.

Quince and citrus marmalade

I don't eat a lot of sweet preserves but do make some wild fruit jams (blackberry, elderberry and apple/crab apple is my favourite) and marmalade. The last time I made a traditional English orange marmalade was over 20 years ago. These days I use a mixture of citrus fruits combined - when in season - with wild fruits such as rose hip, rowan or hawthorn. This autumn I was given a large bag of quince so I experimented with a quince and citrus recipe.

For the citrus component I use up the saved, sliced peel from limes and lemons that have been stored in the icebox, plus the remains of lemons and limes that have been squeezed for various recipes (also stored in the ice box). It's such a mish mash that I can't give you an exact weight or number of fruit used, which I know is not at all helpful if you want to try this for yourself. I also usually buy a fresh lemon, lime and in this instance a red fleshed grapefruit that was on special offer. I peeled them, shredded the peel and squeezed the juice from them.

All of the peel and juice went into a pan, the pulps into a muslin bag and placed in the same pan. The whole thing was covered with about 1.5 litres of water and simmered until the peel was tender. This is the basic marmalade recipe.

Meanwhile, I peeled and cored 5 large quinces, chopped them up, added them to a separate pan with enough water to just cover them, and simmered until soft and mushy. Then I mashed them with a potato masher.

When the citrus peel was ready I did the usual squeezing of the muslin bag into the pan and dumped the contents of the bag onto the compost heap. I then added the quince pulp, mixed it all up and measured the volume. For every half litre I added the usual 450g sugar and then boiled until setting point. Hey Presto! Quince and citrus marmalade, and delicious.

P.S. The quince peelings and cores went into a large jar of water and fermented to make scrap vinegar.