Episode #15: Fruit with a bad name for itself
Medlar jelly, lemon verbena gin and the annual dahlia lottery
Last weekend, 16-17 November, was mainly about medlars, but with new seedlings for next year’s growing starting to take over the winter greenhouse. A first frost was forecast, but it didn’t arrive.
(There are a *lot* of photos in this post, and it might not all fit on your email. Hitting the View Entire Message button at the end should sort this out, as will reading via the app or online versions of Substack.)
This week’s Plot Shot
It is late November, and there are still a last few sweet peas hanging onto the bean frames in the rotation beds. They’re mostly shielded by the forest of self-seeded borage plants, but I’m still surprised they’ve kept going this late in the year.
Consulting my empty seed packets for a likely colour match this one *may* be ‘Eclipse’ but I can’t be sure. Whichever, it is defying whatever is munching it for lunch. Sorry about the munch hole.
Plot work in progress
My main job for the weekend was to tidy up the season’s accumulated chaos in the greenhouse, and prepare for winter growing. Sadly neglected summer plants chucked out to the compost bin, cleaning down staging and seed trays, and juggling the root trainers of growing broad beans and sweet peas to give the plants more head room.
I’ve only photographed the tidy bits, obviously. There’s still more to do to tame overgrown pelargoniums and soft summer herbs trailing across the floor, but at least the rack of seed trays is ready to go.
Harvesting now
While tidying the greenhouse, I picked the last handfuls of good leaves from the lemon verbena, which has stayed in a pot all year. A first frost will finish it off, so time to use what’s left of the summer.
Empty Kilner bottle at the ready, I emptied the dregs of three bottles of cheap gin, long left over from parties and abandoned at the back of a kitchen cupboard. Our recycling bin looks as if we’ve been on a Martini bender. I should have put a twist of lemon peel in as well, but there were no lemons to be had. Our Martinis would have been rubbish, but the gin dregs will tast like fizzy sherbet lemons in a few weeks.
Making and eating
Finally it has been time to make jelly from the long-awaited bletted, frozen and defrosted medlars. They were stubborn, taking their time since being picked off the tree. Our first decent crop of medlars since planting the tree and our first time making medlar jelly.
The recipe for the jelly called for two Bramley or Granny Smith apples, but we substituted the last three pink-fleshed Walthamstow Wonders from the fridge. Those, and sprigs of rosemary from the plot, made this an all-allotment-grown affair. All the browns, golds, russets and pinks of autumn in one pan.
Jelly-making is a more delicate in the making than other preserves. We’re usually boiling lots of sweet fruit jam, or stirring vats of vinegared chutney. But jelly has to drip slowly through muslin, not be pushed or squeezed, or the jelly goes cloudy.
Our 1.2 kilos of medlars made five 190ml jars of jelly1, which felt like a small victory in a year when we’ve had some disappointing harvests2.
E17 Local Hero
The making of the medlar jelly sent me down a minor rabbit hole, looking for any similar jellies made for sale. The interwebs eventually led me to Eastgate Larder, and proprietor Jane Steward, who keeps the UK’s National Collection of about 115 medlar trees in her Norfolk village.
Jane is a ‘committed medlar enthusiast’ and author of ‘Medlars - Growing and Cooking’. Never mind knowing one’s onions, Jane knows her medlars, which she describes as “an ancient and wholly unapologetic fruit”. She must have a standard line to explain why medlars look like they do, and why they have vulgar nicknames.
Apparently, being a fruit which is rotten before it is ripe, medlars are a symbol of dereliction and decay in literature. There are medlars in Chaucer and Shakepeare, Saki and Cervantes, where to be compared to a medlar hints at destitution, corruption. Seems harsh for a small brown fruit.
Keeping 115 medlar trees of different varieties, and running a small business making damson jelly, spiced damson chutney and damson gin liqueur is probably one of those very bonkers things that British folk are so very good at. Super niche and yet quietly heroic at the same time.
Of course, now that I’ve found Jane’s medlar jelly for sale in a deli in Peckham, south east London, I’m going to have to go and buy a jar for comparison. Solidarity between medlar makers!
Community of Practice
The clearing down of the greenhouse threw me the annual practice challenge of what to do with the dahlia tubers, also known as the Annual Dahlia Lottery. There are options, but none are entirely reliable.
I love dahlias on a summer allotment. Who wouldn’t love a plant which produces more flowers, the more you pick them? But the annual coin-toss of whether to dig up or mulch down the tubers at the end of the season is a tough one. I’ve had both ways work, both fail miserably, but ultimately it comes down to wet. Dahlia tubers rot really easily, and no amount of careful drying of tubers and packing in dry compost, or mulching with shovels of compost in the ground will keep them if the wet gets them. I’ve gone for digging up and drying this year, as 2024’s wet spring was ruinous for dahlias.
The Weekly Fox
Our fox family are well fed and wearing their big winter coats for when the cold and the wet do come. There is still reshuffling going on, as everyone sorts out who is living where after some dens were destroyed last week, but the site is large and they seem to be working it out.
Until next week, let’s all admire Leo, who is our most chonky gorgeous boy. He knows it too.
Ang
Five small jars of medlar jelly, £4.95 each, based on the only comparator I could find from Norfolk East Gate Preserves. Total £24.75.
Total for this week, Episode #15, £24.75, total to date since Episode #5, £196.59. Eleven weeks’ produce, based on current supermarket or local farmers’ market prices.
Thank you very much, I will have a look!
A lovely post to read. I spotted your greenhouse chrysanthemums - I love them and really must give them a try next year!