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Sunday, December 20, 2015

Gooseberry Delight


Barely one half of a single gooseberry bush filled this full-sized laundry basket!
Tomorrow, we pick the other half, then, gooseberry jam-making!


7 comments:

Unknown said...

One of my childhood chores was picking the gooseberries just before Christmas. Going on that haul you have a pretty old bush. We had quite an orchard with plums and apples. The crab apple jelly making was done using the bunks in our bedroom to strain the cooked pulp through old flour sack and it was beautiful clear jelly. Gooseberries were used with blackcurrants to make a nice tart pie.
Nostalgia

robertguyton said...

That gooseberry bush (we have 50 or there-abouts)) is a beauty. The crab apple jelly making process you enjoyed is one we still repeat every summer, only we hang ours from the kitchen rafters and drip the juice into a big crockery bowl that sits on the table (no squeezing!) Our black currants haven't been netted yet, but judging from the vigour with which the blackbirds and thrushes have attacked the red currants, I'd better get it done soon! Nostalgia is such a delight and the experiences that create it well worth re-creating, mostly.

fredinthegrass said...

"Currently" in Alexandra with family for Christmas, and I can almost taste the "gooseberry" pie from here!
Suggested to my lovely wife I could, and she gave me the "raspberry" for my over 'fertilized' mind. So I got out my "Blackberry" and went back to work with a "strawberry" face.
Enjoy the result of your labours, Rg.

robertguyton said...

That's usually a hot spot, Fred. You'll probably know about the wild asparagus "drifts" down by the river, but that would be any use to you at this time of the year. Today's cooled off, thank goodness, as yesterday was a sizzler! My grandson was paddling about in the outdoor bath (tepid only) when the wind dropped, then turned, the sky went from blue to grey and the rain began to fall - what a relief!!

robertguyton said...

wouldn't

fredinthegrass said...

Yesterday was a scorcher. Today the breeze is in the southerly quarter and much more pleasant.
Enjoying a couple of grandchild free moments in our caravan - although we are really having fun with them.
At nearly 10, and "I,m 9 next year granddad!" they are a delight. Very little 'screen time', and lots of outdoor imaginative stuff we
enjoyed as youngsters.
Our gooseberry harvest was a non event this year, and our Kentish cherries - only 18 months since wrenched as suckers - had 6 fruit!! - Birds 5, Me 1.
Next year I'll beat the birds.

robertguyton said...

We've apricots this year, though a man in Central Otago might think, "big deal!".
I'll net them. And eat them.