Still laid up but I’ve been bottling foraged fruit
Comments(41) 
Photo: Bottled cherry plums
I’m getting to the end of my third week being in bed. Finally last week my doctor discovered that I have a problem with my kidneys. I was beginning to wonder whether I’d just fade away like one of Dicken’s heroines.
So now we are waiting for more test results. Meanwhile I languish in the big spare room bed feeling lousy. I get up for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I’ve been out on two mini foraging trips to harvest wild plums and have bottled (canned) six kilos to eat in the winter months. I’ve also been harvesting the chubby wild blackberries that grow in our garden for wine and bottling with sliced apples. Gentle satisfying exercise.
We usually make jam, jelly and chutney with the wild cherry plums but this year I wanted to try bottling this fruit. When I was a child my mum bottled a lot of fruit (freezers were rare in those days) and I loved looking at the jars lined up on the larder shelves. Comfortable, squat, their fruit suspended in the coloured syrup.
There’s lots of good advice about bottling on the internet. I found the allotment.org.uk site very useful. In the end I rang my mum and she looked up her old method in her ancient Ideal Gas cookery book. Here are the instructions for bottling plums.
- Make a syrup of anything between 4ozs (113g) to a pound (454g) of white sugar to one pint (568ml) of water. My mum tipped to use the minimum sugar as too much can make the syrup taste sickly.
- Sterilise jars, rings and caps. Always use new rubber seals.
- Wash fruit and discard any bad or bruised fruit.
- Set the oven to Gas Mark ½ (120°C, 250°F).
- Pack the jars very tightly with the plumbs pushing them firmly down.
- Put several sheets of newspaper into a deep baking tray (to absorb any liquid that bubbles over)
- Place the jars two inches apart on the baking tray. Fill to the makers mark (about an inch below the rim) with boiling syrup. Lids on very loosely (not tightened or clipped shut).
- Bake in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes. (Times change depending on the fruit used).
- Remove the baking tray and seal the topsof the jars firmly using a thick oven cloth.
- Leave for 24 hours before testing the seals.
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Thanks for that – was wondering what I was going to do with some of our produce. Did she bottle veg as well?
Hi Joanna
As far as I can remember she didn’t bottle vegetables.
I’m hoping to bottle tomatoes this autumn.
Another step or two closer for you to finding just what this lurgi is…..
Plums = Yum. Pop a blackberry or 20 into the freezer now so you can pop a handful of these berries into an apple pie or crumble over the colder months. So rewarding to the palate!
sending healing and wellness, Michelle and Zebbycat
Glad they’re getting closer to the medical solution – time off is lovely but if you’re used to being active and have to rest up it can be very frustrating. Thanks for this post – bottling fruit has always been a bit of a mystery and sounded very complicated in my books but you’ve made this very simple to follow. We’re currently looking after my father-in-law to give mum-in-law a bit of respite and as he’s been so well since we’ve been here we risked leaving him for a couple of hours for a nice walk (they live in a village in the country as opposed to our edge of the town). We were delighted to come across lots of hazelnuts and came back with our shorts pockets bulging = about 4lb in total. Some we picked off trees but lots were obligingly thrown down by the squirrels! The neighbour popped over some apples yesterday too so it seems harvest has begun! Hope they find the solution to your kidney problem so you can get fighting fit again soon.
There’s something deeply satisfying about shelves of bottled or pickled or otherwise preserved produce. It must go back to the ancient hunter-gatherer instinct for how to survive the lean winter months.
I do hope you feel better soon. Being ill is incredibly frustrating and boring.
What a lovely picture!
So pleased that you are in the process of finding out what is wrong and can then address the solution.
Sending you a big hug.
Warning! You mustn’t bottle veg without a pressure canner – the oven or water bath method is not hot enough, and you risk botulism – which can kill you!
Browse the American sites for info, I imported my pressure canner from the US, but you can use a pressure cooker, I believe, just don’t get much done at a time. The Ball Blue Book is the book you are after for full details.
Same goes for meat by the way – anything not acid – so if you put some peppers in with your tomatoes, Bob’s your uncle, you need to pressure can.
In fact, apparently, as tomatoes get sweeter, they are considered a bit border line, and I always put a good squirt of lemon juice in with mine to be on the safe side.
Plums and other soft and top fruit are of course, definitely acid, and safe to bottle by the oven or water bath method.
Here ends the health and safety lecture! LOL
Do the rubber seals go in the oven too? Or do they go in when the jars come out?
Hi Ruth
The rubber seals go on the jars before they go into the oven (it is a very low temperature in the oven so they will be quite safe. If using Le Parfait just drop the lid and do not do up the clips until they have been processed in the oven. With Kilner style jars set the rubber seal on top with the metal screw top loosely fitted – this is tightened after processing in the oven.
Wild balckberries? Wild hazelnuts…?! Crikey, the blackberry profusion (or should I say, confusion) which weaves its tangled, thorny way throughout our ffarm’s hedgerows has only just finished flowering! And as for hazeluts – well, they’re plumping nicely but still nestling snugly in their elf-cap cups; a modest shade of soft sea green.
However the rich crops of fiercely sweet wild strawberries & pump little purple whinberries were bountiful this season; & sadly, all spent.
Harvests in West Wales are evidently a fair bit later in spite of the longer daylight hours (& wetter too – still not managed to get the haymaking done, yah boo hiss). But a lovely day in the picturesque coastal town of Aberaeron at the annual Festival of the Welsh Cob: we were working, but what a fantastic, lively show bathed with plenty of sunshine & sporting the most magnificent horses too – rightfully, the pride of Wales.
Meanwhile its great to know the Docs are a step closer to a successful diagnosis; let’s hope treatment is prompt, painless & speeds you swiftly to recovery.
Big hugs from us & the goats et al –
Jo, Tony & menagerie. xx
Hello Michelle (NZ)
Great idea. We are bottling blackberries and a mix of blackberries and apple too. Our freezer always seems to be bursting at the seams.
Hello Jan
I so agree. It’s comforting just looking at the filled jars. And in the winter I know that we’ll really appreciate these.
Hello Toffeeapple
Delighted to be moving forward on the medical front.
Thanks for the hug!
Hi Jackie
Thanks for your advice – much appreciated. Needless to say my tomatoes are still green – hopefully there will be sunshine before long.
Hello Jo
I love those sweet wild strawberries – I made an excellent vodka with them last year!
The cob festival sounds fun.
Thanks for all your good wishes.
I know this is a really silly question – but do you stone the plums first or anything – or do you just put whole washed plums into the jars?
Hi Tree
Just put the whole washed plums into the jars. Pack them in as firmly as you can.
Hope you get better soon. Havent been on this site since last year but as I feel the urge to get out into the hedgerows again I thought it would be wise to give you a visit again. So far I have been unable to track down any sloes this year as I want so much to make sloe gin. Maybe I am a bit early(I live in Co. Fermanagh) but what I have found is loads of wild hazelnuts! The question is what to do with them? Ideas please before they disappear!!!
Hello Paul
I think that you’re a bit early for sloes.
Haven’t found any wild hazel nuts yet but HFW has some good ideas and recipes here http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/sep/08/features.recipes
Thanks -I will give it a go but if anyone else can come up with something I will try it!I am off to keep an eye on my elderberry source as I intend to make lots more gin-hic!
Have you ever used normal big jars with the vacuum pop lids? I’ve got loads of these and thought about bottling my greengages in them, but was never sure of how to do the lids. Do I leave them loose but unscrewed until they come out of the oven and then screw them on firmly?
Hi Steelkitten
I spotted a discussion on http://www.moneysavingexpert.com about using normal jars for bottling. I didn’t include it here as I’m not sure how safe they are to use.
If I was to use this method, I’d losely screw the lids on and then tighten them when they came out of the oven using a thick oven cloth.
Out and about recently I couldnt help but notice a fairly abundant crop of rowanberries. Does anyone use these in any way. I thought they would be an ingredient for hedgerow jam. Any other ideas?
My parents have made rowan jelly to eat with lamb for as long as I can remember. There is a recipe in Jane Grigson, I think, and certainly one in Mrs Beeton. They mix it with apples — either crab or cooking — and use a jelly bag to strain them. I am just about to make some myself (though the rowans are a bit too ripe now but I went to John Lewis two weeks’ ago to buy a jelly bag and they were out of stock — and the Lakeland set is SO expensive — so I was stopped in my tracks). The jelly is especially delicious with meat (instead of redcurrant) and with brie and camembert, but I suppose you could eat it on toast too.
Hi Paul
Yes I’ve noticed a lot of rowan berries too. I’m going to try Tess’s suggestion. HFW has written a good jelly recipe here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/oct/21/recipes.foodanddrink
Hi Tess
Thanks for that recipe suggestion.
You don’t need a jelly bag. You can use an old piece of cotton (I’ve used an ancient pillowcase in the past) and a sieve. Sterilise the cotton by ironing it.
Dear Paul and Fiona,
From http://thefoody.com/preserves/rowanjelly.html
Rowan Jelly
Makes: 1.4 – 1.8kg (3 – 4lb)
900g (2lb) Rowan Berry
900g (2lb) Crab Apples
1.8lt (3 pints) Water
Sugar
Pick over the rowan berries, removing any stalks, wash if necessary, drying well.
Wash the whole crab apples, removing any bruised parts.
Place the fruit and just enough water to cover into a heavy bottomed saucepan.
Bring to the boil and simmer, covered for 20 – 25 minutes, until tender.
Strain through a jelly bag or muslin cloth, allow about 4 hours for this, do not squeeze as this will cause the jelly to become cloudy.
Measure the volume of the liquid, add 450g (1lb) of sugar for each pint (600ml) of liquid.
Place the sugar in an ovenproof bowl and put it in the centre of a pre-heated oven for 10 – 15 minutes.
Place the juice back into a heavy bottomed saucepan, add the sugar, stirring until fully dissolved.
Bring to the boil and cook rapidly for 10 – 15 minutes until the setting point is reached.
Skim the surface if necessary, allow to cool slightly then pot.
This is the Mrs Beeton recipe, and you can substitute cooking apples for crabs. Actually, all of Mrs Beeton’s preserve recipes seem to be up on the Foody website which is quite useful if you don’t own an ancient copy (which I do). They are invariably reliable in my experience (have just made delicious damson jam from here). I would also highly recommend her Indian Chutney (at http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/1018-indian-chutney.html) which I made as a way to use up my surplus apples in 2007. I used curry powder instead of the spices and it worked very well.
Thanks for the muslin bag tip — I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself!
Tess
Hi all,
Has anyone ever made jelly using haws?
I was given the recipe last year and it is a beautifully fragrant jelly and tastes delicious.
Put 3 lbs. of washed haws and 3 pints of water in a saucepan and simmer for 1 hour. Strain thru muslin and to each pint of juice add 1 lb. of sugar and strained juice of 1 lemon. Boil until setting point is reached, etc etc. Heavenly!! Go on, try it. You know you want to!!
I have some beautiful red gooseberries in the freezer at the moment and I am looking for a Gooseberry relish recipe to eat with pate….any suggestions?
I know this sounds bonkers, but the winning jelly at our village show was gooseberry and mint. It was stupendous.Would be lovely with meat of any sort.
The only gooseberry relish recipe I have come across is in in the penguin Cordon Bleu Book of Jams Preserves and Pickles by Rosemary Hume and Muriel Downes. This is an excellent book by the way, if you can find a second hand one cheap, do so ( the one on amazon is an OUTRAGEOUS price…)…not sure I can post the recipe on here without infringing copyright, otherwise I would! I suggest keeping the Goosegogs in the freezer until you get hold of a sensibly priced copy the book!
Many thanks for your contribution..I will keep looking.
Tess- google Gooseberry Relish recipe- loads of recipes come up, the first four I read were very similar to the Hulme and Downes one. Problem solved I hope!
Hi, wonder if you can help me – i’ve just bottled some plums for the first time following your instructions except I slow water bathed them as per allotment.org. One problem and I can’t find an answer to it on the internet – the fruit has risen to the top of the jars leaving a 2 cm gap at the bottom of syrup – what did i do wrong?? Many thanks
Hello Evie
This has happened to me when I’ve forgotten to press the fruit/tomatoes down hard with the back of a wooden spoon. The faulty jars are now in our storage area in the barn and each time I see them I kick myself.
A boring learning curve.
So can I still use them or correct them in anyway or are they rendered useless
… Oh well, at least i’ve still got lots of plums!
Hi Evie
I’m pretty sure that you can still use them. I’m going to use mine anyway
If the seal’s good, you can use them, it won’t harm them at all
Thanks Jackie
That’s a relief.
Good morning all,
(Also posted on Plum Chutney blog)
I’m after some advice. As well as this excellent chutney recipe we make plums in red wine. The recipe is from Delia, Book 3 of her 3 book set. We have been freezing this to presrve it, but we wondered if, since it contains sugar and wine, whether this could be bottled in Kilner jars, for example, and not frozen. Anyone any thoughts? Incidentally, we can recommend the recipe, fresh or frozen.
I’ve just had my first go at bottling plums using the oven and Le parfait jars. Am I supposed to seal the clips before they go in the oven or after? – I’ve found opinion varies! Also, I seemed to lose quite a lot of the syrup during processing despite sealing the jars first – is this normal and is the product still safe to eat? Thanks
Hi Angela
I say above leave lids on very losely or unclipped. Fill to about an inch below the rim.
Sometimes my jars seem to bubble over so a small ovenproof jug with syrup that goes in the oven with the jars can be useful.
I think that you only seal the jars for the water bath method.
I reckon that your fruit will be safe to eat but would never advise tightening lids before putting them in a slow oven.
Great information. However I have been bottling yellow plums by cooking them first (sugar added) and then bottling and sealing in sterilized jars when they are boiling. In storage after a while they begin to turn brown. Any suggestions please?
Hi Robert
It sounds as if they are going bad to me. I thnk that you needed to hot water bath process them after filling them.
I bottled yellow and red plums and they still are yellow and red.
Hi, relative newcomer both to your fab site and to preserving. Have had success with this yrs bumper harvest of plums blackberries both with jams and alcohols but am greedy and looking for 2nd uses…I have started 2nd-run blackberry sherry from my ginned berries and am considering broaching Slider if I dare. Am loathed to throw out the fruit from my plum/damson gin, would it be safe to subsequently syrup it? does it need to be cooked-in or is the alcohol-steeping sufficient to just add ready-made syrup? Am I just being over-frugal?
Incidentally, am hoping to make sloejack for christmas. Have you ever tried it?
Just to say to Lindsay, that I always use my gin soaked fruit as a dessert with Ice Cream…it’s delicious (hic!)
Mmmm – looking forward to that, thanks. Hubby is fed-up with 5 months of plums so I have to ration them out slowly, am concerned about storage once liquid is removed (hence bottling idea) have a 1.75l jar full but this is employing precious gin that could be bottled. I’m giving a selection of jars bottles to family for Xmas ‘cos there are only 2 of us and lots of preserves! Now off to sculpt a gift of marzipan fruits and animals!