Jam and peas (keeps 'em on the knife?)

A Leaning Tower of Tayberry Conserve. They are leaning because the cooling rack is elderly. It's conserve not jam because the whole fruits were added to a syrup so the fruit keeps its shape somewhat. The tayberries came ripe about 6 oz at a time, every other day. I kept freezing them till I had 3 lb. When they came out of the freezer yesterday I left them overnight to thaw. There was rather a lot of juice, and this is what I dissolved the jam sugar in. (Plus a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice. No added water.) It only took about 4 minutes rapid boiling to get a set, so the jam has a lovely fresh-fruit taste.


Afterwards I went out into the garden vegetable plot to dig over some ground and plant out my Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli (I swear there was a cabbage white butterfly watching me do it!) and my leeks. I usually have my leeks in by now but life and new baby grand-daughters intervene! Unfortunately I couldn't find my trusty dibber. I know exactly where it was in the old shed but since we filled the new shed, I can't find it. I can report authoritatively that the butt end of a trowel is no substitute! I planted about half but I've shelved the project until I can find the real thing. Annoying!

The peas in question are the seeds of my hybrids. I'm trying to get a purple mangetout and have crossed Lancashire Lad (as the Daddy) with Oregon Sugar Pod (Mummy) and these are the best of my resulting pods. The first lot I cross pollinated had blue ribbon as the tag. They were fairly indifferent - one or two peas to the pod and big long gaps. Gold thread marked the second lot - a bit better. Brown were the third and by this time I seemed to be less cack-handed about it. These are the pink tagged and are really good. The observant quilters will see that they are tagged with variegated Valdani quilting cotton. Nothing but the best for my babies!

Next spring I will sow these - my F1 hybrids - and the theory is that they should all look the same (though I'm not quite sure what to expect them to look like - green, purple, fat podded, flat podded? For a nosey parker it's an interesting job, as the song says. The following year (or later that year if the weather's good and I get a wriggle on with the F1s) I'll sow the seeds of these - my F2 plants. This is where the interesting and exciting variation will take place - and where I'll have to separate my plants a bit further apart and make sure each is labelled and numbered so I know what I'm doing! (That's the hard bit - knowing what you're doing!)

Just a final picture of my little cross tomato which is beginning to colour up slightly. This looks exactly like its siblings (Sungold) but its seeds will be a treasure trove. The pollen parent is the Heritage Tiger Tom. Who knows what I'll get?

I'll add a couple of pics of Tayberries for Matron in the next post. Blogger playing Silly Bloggers at the moment and not uploading pictures!