A Refreshing Way to Use all that Fruit

If you grow fruit you know that it always comes at once and once started different fruit come in waves one after another.

The first is the rhubarb and the obvious crumble, pies and stews all with a few chucks of fresh ginger.

The soft fruit the currants white, black and red hanging in clusters waiting to be picked and smell with childhood memories as they are collected, usually accompanied by gooseberries which have softened, and if you dare to put your hands in, give generously. The comes the raspberries in waves up to autumn.

The cherries are a short season which is often shortened further by the birds who sit there picking at them and then dropping the half-eaten fruit to the floor just to remind you that they were there first.

We are now into serious baking and stewing. A bowl at breakfast with Greek yogurt and some granola and fresh orange juice. We get the fresh oranges from Soller in Mallorca and we could be back in the Mediterranean sitting here on a sunny morning in London.

After dinner more fresh fruit, this time with custard and sometimes warmed up.

However, the fruit keeps coming and now the strawberries are competing for attention.

The blackberries on the path to the allotments are getting ready to offer themselves up and large yogurt tubs will be frozen for winter pies.

You can juice some but then what is the point unless you want to bake cakes and use the rinds and pulp in the cake and the juice for drizzle? I do like making Polenta cakes with fruit but in winter. However, I will freeze some for baking cakes later.

All this without the plums, pears and apples!

Some will be wanting to make pressee and cordials or even wine, but we have never been into the exercise nor following recipes to the letter or, in the case of wine, waiting. Mind you when the vine give up their grapes this year we are probably going to have to change our thinking on wine.

Now my wife Annie has found the perfect solution - ice lollies. No more Magnum and Solera lollies we make our own. Yesterday the moulds arrived. Today we are eating red and black currant, gooseberry and rhubarb ice lolly. Wow, and it tastes good and so clean on the palette on this hot day.

We had tried an ice cream maker but found it too much faff and too much cream and frankly gave up as it took too much space in the freezer.

We spent some time discussing the next batches and also what we could experiment with. Sweetened yogurt twirled in with stewed or juiced fruit sounded divine. Yogurt sweetened with honey and added to stewed gooseberries. The list went on and we realised that we had found another way to use and enjoy the harvest.

Tutti Frutti!!!!

Pigeons Eyeing up a Dawn Raid on My Cherries

‘I see they have sent the reconnaissance team out on a recce,’ Lottie says pointing her paw towards a big fat pigeon sitting on my allotment neighbour’s fruit frame.

‘That pigeon will soon get frustrated here,’ I reply looking at the pigeon. He is in his airman outfit, goggled-up and wearing his black leather flying jacket. His chest is covered in his medals which were probably awarded for successful dawn raids on the allotment plots and their produce.

‘You know pigeons are just flying rats?’ declared Lottie looking at me then back to the pigeon. ‘I believe they are distant relatives to Sidney squirrel and his mates.’

‘You may have a point there, but you never catch one of them,’ I replied.

‘He’ll be waiting for reinforcements,’ Lottie says as she adopts her ‘downward dog’ yoga pose. She is obviously now somewhat bored. Whippets have a short attention span and unless it involves food or a game, they soon nod off for a nap.

‘I know he's eyeing up my cherries on the tree and is just pretending to be resting. I bet he’s waiting for his mate so they can sit there chatting like Cissy and Ada,’ I offered whilst my eyes try in vain to out-stare the pigeon.

‘Ada, Cissy?’ questions Lottie.

‘You know Cissy and Ada, or should I say Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough.’

‘Who?’

‘Sorry, I forgot they were before your time and anyway you don’t watch TV, do you?’

Lottie does not respond but suddenly jumps up and lets out a single warning bark. Her attention is clearly focused on the tree. The pigeon doesn’t flinch and his attention is also clearly now on the cherry tree.

I look all around the tree and in the direction of Lottie’s pointed snout. But I cannot see Freddie Fox or the moggy from the farm and wonder what has upset her enough to fire off one of her rare barks. ‘What’s up?’

‘Didn’t you see that little bird fly into the tree have a peck at a cherry and then leave it and fly out?’ Lottie asks.

I look hard but see nothing.

I had given the cherry tree a hard pollard over winter and I did not expect any fruit this year. However, the hard pollard had resulted in a dense leaf growth and the tree is now is laden with an abundance of fruit under each dense canopy. I secretly had hoped that the thick leaf cover would fool the birds, and hide the fruit to all but low flying birds. I expected it to make it too tricky for the birds to fly into and out of unless they were ace pilots and masters of all the necessary flying skills.  

As if on queue, pigeon Ada now joins pigeon Cissy and their eyes dart over the cherry tree. Their wings are crossed, and they appear to be nodding in deep and meaningful conversation.

I bet they are secretly taking photos to take back to the squadron,’ tuts Lottie.

I can visualize the pigeon squadron pouring over aerial maps and photos and planning their flight paths and flying formation to attack my cherry tree. I had resisted the temptation to earlier net the tree and putting a net under it would just encourage them to come to dinner.

‘Why don’t you build a scare crow it might frighten them away?’ offers Lottie picking up on my thoughts.

Just then a little tit flew in and seconds later flew out, having pecked at yet another cherry.

‘A scarecrow would not have stopped that little one would it?' I offered. 'Why can’t they just take one instead of just pecking holes in loads of cherries and spoiling them for all.’ 

Lottie who is now lying under the allotment bench and is clearly bored. I can see her eyes starting to close and she is ready for another nap.

The pigeons take off, they circle around the tree and drop a couple of white markers over the tree.

'I bet when I come back tomorrow the tree will be stripped and there will be a squadron of pigeons sitting on the fence dripping with cherry juice and pinning more medals on each other.' I find myself talking to myself.

I don’t know about Lottie but I will not get a wink of sleep tonight. I will be thinking about the envisaged Pigeon dawn raid on my tree. Should I have made a scare crow, or got out my ladder and bagged all the fruit before others stake their claim? Mind you, a scarecrow would soon be either ignored, or dive bombed by these pesky monsters and I also don’t have any ladders at the allotment.

Later that night I finally go to off to sleep counting pigeons taking cherries.