85% Crab Apples and 15% green Wildings. Both will go to make Crab Apple jelly shortly. The result of foraging whilst on a walk down by the river today. Tree after tree of Crab Apples (so I don't need to raid the one I saw in the grounds of what used to be Builth Castle (just the motte, moat and bailey remain. No stone in sight! These were all taken to rebuild the town after a disastrous fire in the 1690, though probably robbed for building prior to that too.
A Crab Apple tree with tiny yellowy fruit on the river bank.
The river down by the rocks, fuming and swirling.
Calmer waters.
Not very clear, but this is a Wilding tree, grown from a discarded apple core and true to one of its parents. This would be just as good cooked up as a jelly. Fortunately I had about 20 crab apple trees to choose from!
As you can see, I had a lovely walk with my friend Pam and her dog, and glad she loaned me a big canvas bag to put the apples in.
I spent a goodly while this morning carefully clipping the binding into place on the quilt, only to look properly at it and realized I'd clipped it to the wrong side . . . Put that right after our walk.
I've been fighting with myself about putting the central heating on, but it WAS only 15 degrees in here and my hands were like blocks of ice. I am about to go in the living room (warmer anyway) and drape myself in the heated blanket, which will stay switched on so I can turn the heating off. Electric blanket to be switched on tonight too. Yet - until the sun went down it was lovely and warm out. After the frosts, I've been pulling the curtain and pulling down the blind in the kitchen, but that still leaves the window over the sink uncovered, so I must do something about that before winter is here. Should have done it when we first moved in in fact.
Keep warm.
How beautiful your countryside is! Those ancient self grown trees are lovely and lavish w apples. Where I lived as a small child, in between the back yard and the real woods was a small very old by our standards] gnarled apple orchard. Prob from the earliest settler/ farmer, 1800s. One year we tried to make jelly--but my recollection is the old apples were wormy and not good. I wish now we'd ben able to learn the type of apple.
ReplyDeleteI want you to know your lovely baking inspired me today, rare a grey, a splat of rain, to bake--a rustic pear tart, biscuits [like fluffy rolls/ buns] and bec the oven was on roasted cauliflower. The tart isn't as nice as your cake tho.
The Swedish recipe abbreviation dl [DL] is decilitres, equals a scant half cup. I suppose any sugar cooky recipe [shortbread biscuit?] would do, if rolled thin. Next rainy day I ll look to see if I have autumn leaf cutters. I put the link on my blog, just for fun.
love
lizzy
Ah, I can't remember who wanted to know what "dl" meant but thank you for sharing it. I don't use any Swedish recipes. Biscuits here are thin, and often "dunked" in a cup of tea - for which they need to be a firmly baked type. Glad I inspired you to bake anyway.
DeleteI had mentioned it [DL?], had noted after seeing [again] how different UK recipes are from US. The swedish recipe is pretty hopeless. My pear tart was fabulous, the syrup seeped thru and made the under crust so sweet and crisp. I could have eaten the whole thing. This week's groceries I will look for self rising flour and order corn syrup, in case we get another cool day in October--for your cake!
DeleteI'm catching up on your blog ... surely dl /DL refers to a decilitre, a tenth of a litre, so 100ml. A standard cup is 250ml, although the 'old system' of Breakfast cup and tea cup was 6oz and 8oz want it? Am I right?
DeleteGood morning! 15 deg in here this morning also. Tiny fluffy dog under knee rug keeping me warm. If the sun comes out I won’t need to turn the heater on but I think it’s actually greyer. I found out a ‘Christmas quilt I started many years ago, just needs the hand quilting finished and the binding. I might get on to it later as it’s a holiday weekend here and family and friends away, so a bit quiet. Have a good week, mmmm! Apple jelly yumm! JennyP
ReplyDeleteWe had some sunshine but not enough on the back of the house to encourage me to finish off the painting! Well done with blowing the dust off your Christmas quilt. I have got the binding attached to my Baltimore quilt now and now need to invisibly slip stitch it on the back . . .
DeleteA jelly day tomorrow I think.
Cooling off here as well, but no frost as of yet which is very strange. Look at all the apples you managed to forage.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Trouble is, look at ALL the apples I now have to do something with!! I think Pam and I were generous with the picking.
DeleteWe haven't had a frost yet. Tim is unhappy with the sliding glass door in the livingroom. He can feel air movement and is worried about this winter. It will not matter so much once the sun room is built in front of it. For this winter, I found some draft proof drapes.
ReplyDeleteWinter tip - get the big sheets of bubble wrap and fasten across a draughty window for the winter. That will stop the problem until you can add the sun room. As you have draft proof drapes though, hopefully that will solve the problem.
DeleteI do the bubble wrap, it helps. But I am intrigued by draft proof drapes, I need something w my big ocean facing windows. Am dreading another cold winter.
DeleteA goodly haul. Did you know that proper wild apple trees are quite rare...and have thorns, like plum trees!
ReplyDeleteThe time of year when curtains need to be drawn at dusk....
No. I don't think I've ever found a really wild one then. No blossom on my plums yet - hopefully next year. Just drawn my bedroom curtains.
DeleteIt's spring here at last 22C and lovely though still a bit chilly at night. All our flowers are in full bloom, the garden looks wonderful. We had the wettest winter in 50yrs and pretty cold colder than last winter. I do so love spring my favourite season. From Shirley in Perth OZ
ReplyDeleteI am dreading the winter as it's meant to be a very cold one . . . I will have to get a treadmill I think. Enjoy your spring - can't wait for next spring here.
DeleteI had always assumed that the small tree poking above a 6ft fence in the next street was a eucalyptus, so I was surprised to see it covered in what looked like small apples when I walked past it yesterday. I soon realised that they were actually olives. A fruiting olive tree in North Yorkshire? I guess that shows how hot this summer was.
ReplyDeleteGood grief! What a surprise. I hope you will put some to good use . . .
DeleteMollie the cat starts bawling pretty early in the morning to have the radiator switched on. She has had me up twice in the night for food as well. But Autumn seems to be progressing at a pretty quick rate.
ReplyDeleteMine come and snuggle up by me - the girls one either side, the boys elsewhere on the bed.
DeleteP.S. Amazing that Millie is doing so well at her age, and has a good appetite too.
DeleteThanks for the info about the wild apple trees, it hadn't occurred to me that they might start life as a discarded core 😀
ReplyDeleteYour crab apple jelly will be gorgeous I'm sure and Rosie will soon be eating that ny the spoonful!
Alison in Devon x
Have you heard of Johnny Appleseed? I picked some home grown apples today - they will store but I need to get a couple of boxes sorted out.
DeleteRosie will definitely like anything sweet I make - she has the family sweet tooth (the girls have it, menfolk not). . .
My comment went lost I guess but as a child our woods had an ancient orchard. My mom always said it was planted by Johnny Appleseed. The apples were terrible, and I now looked them up, apparently he planted sour cider apples, not eating apples. Gnarled and ancient trees, but still bloomed beautifully each spring.
DeleteApparently apple seeds yield unpredictable results — the children are not like their parents. You have to graft the tree you want. Also, historically (at least in N America) apples were grown primarily to make alcohol, not for eating, so they tended not to be tasty…
ReplyDeleteNo, I've grown them from seed before and trees from the same apple core grew two different types of apple.
ReplyDeleteGood to know!! (I should know by now not to believe everything I read on the internet!! 😆 )
DeleteThe telescopic apple picker is a useful gadget. We lent it to our neighbour and were given two bags of conference pears.
ReplyDeleteYesterday we foraged 71 pounds of apples from four trees the lane by the canal reservoir, leaving plenty for others and the wildlife. One tree has small russets apples, the others red and yellow all with good flavour. They keep well in stacked mushroom trays in the cold garage.
My friend Pam has one for her apple tree. Gosh, 71 lbs of apples! Blimey. You must be even more of an appleholic than me!
DeleteA brilliant haul of apples there. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's turned so chilly hasn't it, my heating is set to come on at 15 degrees and it's been on virtually every morning this week, it is nice to have a little bit of warmth as I get up.
I've just cooked up the first four pounds, and have them dripping pinkly through a jelly bag.
DeleteDefinitely feeling autumnal here. I have been putting the heating on for an hour in the morning and a little longer in the evening. Pippio beat me to the heated blanket last night and I didn't like to turf her off to use it . . .