Let us hope this cold spell has reduced the sluggery that goes on in the garden every year. Plants are not safe out in the summer. There they are enjoying a mild day, thinking about their flowers and fruit, when suddenly this slimy gang creep out and chew hell out of them - I call it sluggery.
This is not the same as snailery. They do not hide underground and ambush vegetation - they are more obvious, not so sneaky. Snailery is not the same as sneaky sluggery.
The paths are gravelled, the fallen wood and twigs collected, more muck barrowed and spread despite the frost and snow. Actually we have not had that much here, maximum 3". I did not even get the toboggan out and there was not enough for an igloo. We have had our tragedies with a couple of small bird deaths - this is a window hit from a blue tit and I found a dunnock frozen in a flower bed.
Our buzzard dropped in but was soon harassed into dropping out again by the rooks. I suppose that is a case of rookery?
Today has been Seville Day - I have been making this year's Marmalade. Old recipe, Sadie's Best. I may have blogged this a year or so ago but for the G&G Garden bloggers, here it is again. (I know this is last years batch so do not look too closely at the labels.)
8 lbs Sugar,
9 pints water if softening on top of cooker (I do it in the simmering oven of the Aga with the lid on so only 6 pints water).
2 lemons
1 sweet orange,
yield 14 lbs or so.
(You can see I am not Metric Man)
Cut up fruit, squeeze out juice, tie pips in a muslin bag, and any other bits.
Cut up peel and put through mincer (have old Kenwood).
Put juice and peel in big jam pan and add water.
Put pips and bits in muslin bag and hang in pan.
(NOTE: I need to do it in two lots so need to divide bits into two bags.)
Boil up without sugar and simmer for 1-2 hours till peel soft and transparent.
Now I divide it in two and add half sugar (warmed in bowl in oven).
Stir from time over gentle heat till dissolved, then boil hard, lid off, for 10-12 minutes.
Put jars in bottom oven with lids on a baking tray.
Test regularly by taking off heat and putting a teaspoonful on a saucer. I put the saucers in the freezer to make them cold and speed up the testing.
When you push your finger into test sample and it wrinkles it is ready!
Fill hot jars and screw on tops straight away. As the marmalade cools it vacuum seals the lids. No need for waxy discs and rubber bands and such.
A bit of a faff but once a year should be enough except for extremely avid marmalade consumers, those with a marmalade waistline.
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