Harvest time

Well, the growing year may have got off to a slow start but boy did it make up for it in bounty. We grew over 24 varieties of tomatoes this year, supplying the tea rooms and Foody Friday all summer long, from the small Golden Sunrise treats that popped like sweeties on the tongue to the heavy ox heart shaped Ukrainian black that melted under the grill. We have gorged and grazed on kale, broccoli, cabbages, beetroot, turnips, onions, squashes, beans, beans, beans and pumpkins (big pumpkins). We even had an enormous crop of big and juicy sweetcorn this year. The sprouts, spinach and purple cabbage still sit in the ground waiting for their turn at the dinner table. 

        Apple juice                              Rec currant Cordial                     Plum Jam    

The fruit side of things was even better. Shrubs and trees dripped with fructose filled treasure right from late summer through up to now. We didn't waste a thing. Jams, jellies and cordials were made from black and red currants, bramble, raspberries, strawberries. Even the tart crab apples, sloes and quinces were magically transformed into spreadable delights.

Grant funding provided us with a new toy this year; a fruit press, which we put to good use with the extensive range of apples we have on site. Many of these we acquired as a result the closure of Whitworth Hall Walled gardens a few years ago. The Northern fruit group were worried that the large collection of rare heritage apples would be lost, and managed to take graft cuttings, which we have since grown on here at Lionmouth, alongside our existing mature trees. 

       Processing raw honey by hand                              The finished product

The bees were early however, and by April had already presented us with a hive full of honey. We squash this out by hand, which admittedly doesn't get it all out, but it does mean that all the beneficial properties remain packed inside the jar. 

And that takes us to Halloween, the official end of the growing season and just about everything harvested for the winter. All that needs doing now is to turn these beauties into something terrifying;