Mr Fiction Ed’s Bottled Plums

Mr Fiction Ed has been busy in the kitchen again. This time, it’s bottled plums . . .

I’ve already mentioned his vegetable plot, which is still keeping us in courgettes, potatoes, salad veg, and even runner beans, though they’re getting a bit tough now.

We also have a few small trees – lots of apples to come, both eating and cookers, and crab apples.

Our plum tree is having one of its good years, meaning we have a bumper harvest.

I’ve mentioned previously that we hate to see waste, so we’re doing our best to make use of everything.

We don’t need any more jam. So, what else can we do with all these plums?

We can freeze them as they are. But the freezer’s filling up fast with cartons of soup and bags of berries. I’ve looked at recipes for pies and cakes, and yes, very nice, but you just have to eat them then, don’t you, which is rubbish for the waistline! So I’ll make a couple and then….what? Still lots of plums left.

I’ve made spicy chutney before; I’ll do that again. And stew some to have with yoghurt through the winter months.

But Mr Fiction Ed has gone down a different route and tried bottling some of the fruit for the first time.

He bought some proper preserving jars, googled a few plums in syrup recipes, chose one that took his fancy, and made a cracking job of it, as you can see.

The joy of this is that you don’t even have to take the stones out. Though you get more in each jar if you do, and halve each fruit.

PS Top tip picked up in relation to wasps and plums – because as soon as the fruit gets ripe, the wasps are in there burrowing and being a blinking nuisance. Apparently, wasps hate the smell of mint. So we moved a couple of our mint plant tubs up onto a wall to nestle within the branches of the tree, and it’s worked a treat. No more wasps.

For more from Shirley, read her blog here.

Bottled plums not your thing? Try this recipe instead.