Plum Chutney

Today I picked the meagre crop of plums on the tree in my garden and decided to make a chutney rather than a jam. I used a basic chutney recipe and added a couple of teaspoons of Cayenne pepper flakes to give a little bite. Plum makes an excellent chutney.

Recipe for Spicey Plum Chutney

Ingredients
500g plums
1 medium onion (optional), chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
100ml white wine vinegar
100g sugar
2 tsp flaked chilli

Method

Stone the plums and chop. Add the chopped onion. Add the vinegar and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the chilli and stir occasionally, until softened and slightly thickened.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 150°C /gas 1-2. Place a clean medium-sized jam jar in the oven to warm. When the plum chutney is ready, spoon it into the warm jar. Seal with a lid and leave to cool completely.

Harvesting Time

On Saturday we harvested our Hercules onions on the allotment. These are much bigger and rounder than the Sturon we planted last year and we have decided to plant Hercules again next year.

The plums are ready to pick. Although the leaves on the tree don't look much healthier it's given me a reasonable crop for its first year.

My greenhouse tomatoes have almost reached the end of their life having climbed to the apex of the greenhouse and are now looking decidedly worse for wear. The last batch I picked were used to make several jars of Chilli sauce, with the Cayenne peppers which are also almost finished. The remainder of the peppers I shall dry and flake. The sweet peppers have now turned red and I shall be picking those over the next week.

I am still continuing to crop lettuce and spring onions and this week sowed some Leaf Beet to overwinter in the greenhouse.

A Sorry Looking Victoria

I'm a little worried about my Victoria plum at the moment. As you can see the leaves are browning and curling.

I bought the plum 2 years ago as a feathered maiden and this is the first year it has flowered and fruited. It is in an 18 inch pot, in a mix of topsoil and John Innes No.3 and really needs to move up a size, which I shall do this Autumn, but I don't believe that is the problem. Keeping fruit trees in pots is a precarious business. Constant attention needs to be paid to watering and feeding and I think this is either a vitamin/nutrient deficiency or possibly wind blast.

Anyway, I have given it a feed of Tomorite and will mix some chicken pellets into the soil in the hope that it will recover and not drop the fruit.