Home Grown Lemon Marmalade

I wouldn't normally make marmalade BUT when the lemon tree in the conservatory produces such a heavy crop, it would be criminal not to do something with them. For reasons I won't go into here, the marmalade requirement is no sugar!  This means buying Xylitol at vast expense - on offer at £20.89 for 2 bags gulp!  It's made from Birch sap and I'm told by 'im wot knows that the body metabolises it differently. Luckily, it advises halving the quantity otherwise, I would have needed 4 bags!!

Anyway I picked and weighed all the fruit and then followed Mary Berry's recipe substituting sugar for Xylitol.  She cooks the fruit first and it does make extracting the pulp and chopping the peel super easy. I brought the whole fruits to the boil and then popped them in the bottom oven for a couple of hours. I had a bottle of Certo (pectin) in case it refused to set - which it did. Does anyone actually know why, if no sugar is used, marmalade despite lemons having naturally high levels of pectin, just doesn't want to set? Anyway, Certo saved the day and by day I should explain, it took all day!  Step by step photos

Ginger was added to a third of the marmalade so we have a grand total of 8 jars of lemon and 3 of lemon and ginger marmalade.  Must do some labels now.  Anyway, despite a sticky kitchen full of steam, 'Sir' won't be needing bought sugar free marmalade for while. Not bad for a little lemon tree which only cost £2.50 a few years ago. (I only wish it didn't attract Red Spider Mite and Scale.........sigh!)

And...........yes I did leave plenty of lemons for G's &T's!

Dangerous Addiction Indulged!

The Hut

Woodbury Hill from the terrace

I dared to tiptoe out into the garden today with my new wide angle lens! Unusually, it wasn't raining and  was lovely and clear for about half an hour between the showers. Dangerously, I indulged my addiction to Photomatix and processed some of the bracketed images!  It hardly looks like an English garden in January as the grass looks so long and lush.  I picked a bunch of Narcissus on Saturday!  A Rhododendron bud is showing colour and many Hellebores and Pulmonarias are blooming.  Snowdrops are pushing up but not blooming yet which is interesting as they would normally flower before those which are blooming now. With the Meteorological Office forecasting real winter weather later this week, maybe, they're just more sensible! Fingers crossed  - I love snow and snowdrops! These HDR images are better viewed HERE full screen.

A suspiciously long & lush lower lawn!

I should perhaps mention our little hut as it is yet another recycled unwanted cast off which we restored/rebuilt in 2010. The roof was made from some sheets of corrugated tin which were also being thrown out.  The hut hides down in the lower border behind a large conifer and stores garden chairs etc. over winter.  It's what you might call compact and bijou but - nevertheless another useful rescue!

Our little orchard

Rain definitely didn't stop play...

...but it tried really hard!

Sunshine at last!

Looking across the (very wet) lower lawn.

After what seems like weeks and weeks of dark leaden skies and incessant rain, yesterday saw sunshine and an opportunity to do some garden jobs. Dead fern fronds and last year's Hellebore leaves were cut down. Some fern fronds were heaped on an Arum lily to keep off the frost and everything else composted.  Never has grass looked so long and lush in January but now we have normal frosty temperatures, it should stop growing. Rudolph has joined the rest of his herd in the Aspen Grove and all the Christmas lights were taken down. We even moved a Weeping Willow to the Fernery Path where it will (in time) replace a misshapen old Acer which has reverted and eventually the old Pear tree as well as provide some shade for the Fernery itself.  A few more photos of PTC in January can be seen HERE! I did have a little play with some HDR shots - it's soooooooo addictive!

A very wet winter garden!

The (very soggy) Lower Lawn

Still no opportunity to do any garden work despite a rare dry start to the day. One hardly dares tip toe across the lawn and this HDR image was taken standing firmly on the stone well path.  On a dry day, I would have raised the cutting height on the mower and topped the grass but their is no chance.  We're just not used to grass growing through the winter months. Still; we're promised a cold snap as the jet stream is shifting. This should at least slow down or even halt growth and who knows? It may even dry up! Here's hoping!!

Cracking Good Figures!

Yes, we found 6 one morning!

(Clockwise from left)
Winifred, Fiona, Cicely & Henny Penny (RIP!)

As it's too wet for gardening so, here are some eggsellent statistics for 2015!  If I was doing a proper breakdown, I would have remembered to include the cost of their, layers mash, pellets and mixed corn but I forgot to keep a record. I guess they would have eaten no more than 3 bags of each and they're all around £9 each.  This means that our girls pay for themselves and we're well in pocket with surplus profit buying vegetable seeds.  These girls live in their own spacious bamboo garden ( see living with hens ) with their own property portfolio!  As well as their medieval style pole house, they have their own day shelter, and a conservatory with an additional house and nest box. To say noting of a swing and preening perch. The pole house was purchased but everything else has been made here by us.  We used concrete reinforcing mesh as fencing and dug it in to about 18" to keep out Monsieur Le Reynard.  This was all done about 5 years ago so any cost has long since been forgotten and in any case, it was such fun to do! Different hybrids lay eggs of differing colours so we know eggsactly who's laying (and who isn't!)

Water Water Everywhere!

The lane outside the garden at the bottom of the bank

To say rain stopped play is a bit of an under statement!  The garden is just so saturated, it's impossible to work even from the edges of the lawns.  The super mild weather has meant that grass has continued to grown with absolutely NO hope of running a mower over it. Laugherne Brook down in the dip is across the lane and meanwhile the Hellebores are in bloom with no opportunity to trim off last year's leaves or cut down the ferns. All in all, the garden looks impossibly untidy and there's no consolation in realising that this won't be the only garden in this sodden situation! Sigh!