Another autumn activity stemming from the fruit around me is jam making. I’ve tried this with varying success over the years but decided to try again this year when I discovered a heavily laden quince bush in the hedge between our garden and our neighbours.

This bush is down the side of our extension and the reason I’ve never noticed it before is because this small space has always been overgrown. Since the gardeners came and cleared I’ve turned it into a storage space for my plant pots, the chicken food and other garden stuff.

I noticed a few weeks ago that there was a quince bush covered in fruit against our fence…so I went “scrumping” (I think you can apply that to fruit other than apples but quince are related to apples anyway). I don’t feel that guilty as most of the fruit was on my side and in any case the house has been empty for about 2 months and so the fruit would just have fallen and rotted.

Quince are strange fruit, they are hard and waxy and when raw totally inedible. When cooked the flesh turns a reddish pink colour and the fragrance is almost perfumed. They also produce natural pectin and so can easily be turned into jam and Quince jelly.

I decided to make jam from a recipe found here.

Step 1. Gather 1kg of quince

Step 2. Place in saucepan with 1.5 litres of water and 3/4 cup of sugar and bring to boil. Boil for 2 hours until the fruit has turned pink.

Step 3. Lift the fruit out of the pan, remove cores/pips, chop to pulp and return to pan adding 1 cup of sugar for each cup of pulp. Boil for another 30 minutes until the jam is “set”.

Step 4. Bottle up ready to eat!

My most successful jam-making ever, it smells gorgeous and the colour and texture is beautiful! I hope whoever moves in next door (a) keeps the quince bush and (b) wont mind me picking the fruit next year!