Raspberries & Tomatoes, Tomatoes and Raspberries - Yum!

Well, at last we are having some dry, sunny weather. It’s not hot, not summer hot, not even for England but, maybe that is good as we have not been used to summertime hot temperatures and it takes a few days to acclimatise. Today, I believe, it is somewhere around 20 - 22ºC, which is pleasant. More to the point, it is sunny.

I was at my plot early this morning as I was picking raspberries for a friend. I was aware that I was no longer picking from last year’s canes – that most of the fruits were coming from this year’s and I decided that today was the day to start cutting out the old [last year’s canes].

I know I have talked about this before and I haven’t yet had a convincing argument about cutting back the canes in the autumn/winter.

Some say that cutting back the old canes allows the new canes to develop properly and produce a good crop – well my new canes are already  4 – 6 tall and are already cropping.

Some say that keeping the old canes stops the new canes developing – I have spent most of today cutting out the old canes on some of my rows of raspberries. Each plant seems to be producing multiple new canes – I have reduced the numbers to 4 – 5 on each plant to allow these to become strong. I have also cut away any spindly and out-of-line canes so that the base plants are strong and productive.

One friend did say to me that my method produced too much fruit for him to want to deal with but, really it does provide cropping from early June until October [depending on the weather and the year – sometimes it is earlier and sometimes later].

What I have noticed is that I have not been careful enough to keep my rows of raspberries properly weeded and it has allowed fairly rampant growth of bindweed over my raspberry canes. This has prevented good leaf growth on the new canes further down the stems. The variety I have is Hedge Bindweed or Bellbind – Calystegia sepium, not the more timid variety Convolvulus arvensis. This one is a monster and I also have lots of it in my garden at home. It doesn’t have to be a problem if you keep weeding it out but in this constantly wet year, there have been more pressing problems every time it stopped raining.

Of course, what do I do with all of this fruit – I make jam, I’m not a jam fan and I don’t really like preserves which are seedy – and raspberries are seedy: I can make puddings but, I’m not a ‘sweet’ person, I only make desserts when I have guests; I can freeze the fruit, which I do and I can give it away which I do. This year I needed room in my freezer for this year’s stuff so I went through what was left over from last year.

A few tubs of blackcurrants made blackcurrant jelly. Some tubs of tomato pulp are being recycled into lots of pasta and chilli con carne recipes, but that left me with about ten tubs of raspberries. I made raspberry jelly [yes I mentioned this in my last blog but, here is a recipe]:

Raspberry Jelly

Ingredients

Raspberries (the amount is, up-to-a point irrelevant, they must fit easily into your preserving pan)

Sugar – depending on the amount of juice

A knob of butter

Method

1.      Pick over the fruit to remove any leaves, twigs, etc.

2.      Put in the preserving and over a very low heat, simmer gently until the fruit has broken down and is totally tender,

3.      Strain though a jelly strainer.

4.      Measure the amount of juice.

5.      Allow 1 kilo (lb) sugar for each litre of juice (pt) – don’t mix up the quantities from metric and  imperial measurement.

6.      Put the fruit juice and the sugar into the preserving  pan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

7.      Bring to the boil in a preserving pan or a large saucepan to allow the preserve to come to a rolling boil.

8.      When setting point has been reached, add the knob of butter and mix in well to reduce the amount of foam on the top of the preserve.

9.      Pot, cover and label.

A plot neighbour, Christine, gave me a few tomato plants earlier this year. I thought they were all Alicante. However, one had a growth habit which was obviously a bit different from all the others - very rampant and straggly.  It became apparent fairly early on that it wasn't Alicante and that it had small salad/cherry-type fruits. A couple of them looked as though they were ripe yesterday so I picked them. Yellow fruits, [as Christine described them 'acid yellow']. Amazing flavour and very juicy. Like little sweeties. I can’t imagine any of these making it home. They will be eaten while I’m at the plot.
‘Broad Ripple Yellow Currant’ - they are a Heritage Variety and hard to get hold of seeds though I will explore this.
It is easy to save the seed as they are not a hybrid.
The Garden Organic website has them available for adoption [ I'm not sure what this means - does it mean when you pay your £15 to adopt a heritage plant then you get a packet of seeds, or a plant or do you just get adoption papers and an annual newsletter on its progress - like adopting a tiger!]
Garden organic gives them the following write-up:

‘Indeterminate. Cordon . Originally discovered growing in a pavement crack in downtown Indianapolis, this variety can produce masses of sweet-tasting, tiny yellow fruit right up until mid November! This variety will need rigorous pruning and plenty of space as it is a very vigourous grower. Noted by many as being only mildly affected by the dreaded blight, and very hardy. Seed Guardian Loppy Garrard says "kids love them as they are 'sweetie' sized". The Bell and Bird Table pub, Wellington, voted this tomato joint first at their annual tomato tasting day.’

The picture on the Garden Organic Website didn’t really match the colour of my fruits but, perhaps I harvested them too early. I will post my own photo on a future blog when I have enough to photograph and hopefully, before I eat them all.