Dealing with this glut is a full time job!

[MrsCordial]

I'm having a cup of tea and a breather before embarking on what I hope is the final leg of the preserve-a-thon. I've never known a year where dealing with the apples, damsons, blackberries, green tomatoes, pears etc has been so full-on.

As well as making jams, chutneys, wine and cider, I'm preparing things for the freezer. Just bagged up 10lbs of damsons, and some apple specifically put aside for a recipe. Greengages and green tomatoes are macerating for marmalade-making tomorrow. I have a load of apples to peel and chop ready for crumble, sauce, apple cake, chutney etc, and one final lot of green tomatoes to chop ready for green tomato cake.

After that, I have to tackle the house before someone comes later to inspect something. Pfff!

[Mikey]

Are you doing it commercially Mrs C or is it just solely for pleasure?

[Yasai]

Gluts... Hmmm... I've heard of those things. Yet to experience one sadly. Planning to go overboard with my planting of courgettes next year in the hope that I'll have my first ever glut of something and will be able to try out those pickled courgettes that sound so yummy.

[MrsCordial]

Mikey it's just for eating at home, and so that I don't go to visit people empty-handed, something I hate doing.

Yasai we always do well for blackberry and elderberry locally, there are apple trees on the village green from which we can help ourselves, a friend dropped off 10lbs of damsons on Monday and I've been given several pounds from a branch that fell off someone else's tree, my friend has been giving me apples like the apocalypse is nigh, my parents are knee-deep in pears and apples and we've had shedloads of green tomatoes. Thank god our own apples didn't do much this year!

What really scares me is that from my own veg patch all I've frozen is a few bags of runner beans, but then I used lots to make runner bean pickle. I'm hoping for big things from the veg patch next year - this year was a gentle-ish return to veg farming now my smallest is old enough to amuse himself/be trusted/"help" (aargh!) while I garden - but heaven knows where I'm going to put it all!

Right, back to the coalface.

[Shadylane]

I know how you feel, the freezer is full of tomatoes, veg, fruit and such and I can't seem to stop myself foraging apples and damsons simply because they are there and I have no idea how I'm going to fit them in the freezer. Added to that a friend is visiting this weekend and the house needs a fettle and the ironing needs doing and I'm sitting here reading this when I should be doing the washing up.

[MrsCordial]

Snap Shadylane - we have a friend staying this weekend too and I need to sort out my gone-to-university stepdaughter's bedroom for her and titivate the rest of the house.

I think when people know you're a jammer/chutneyer/pickler etc, they cheerfully throw produce your way. I cheated earlier and just cored and peeled the apple before sticking it in the freezer

[Shadylane]

That's what I'd be doing if we had any room in the freezer. I cleared three bags of rhubarb out yesterday to make jam, but it's made little difference. Fortunately my friend is the opposite of a clean freak so the state of the house won't bother him, but I at least need to clean the bathroom, there's still compost on the windowsills