They said it would be a good year for fruit.

[Nature's Babe]

Anyone else struggling to preserve / use all the fruit? Loads of strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, jostaberries .... and I just noticed the first ripe cultivated blackberry. Even the autumn raspberry all gold is already producing berries, This heatwave seems to be ripening everything all at once. I only have one redcurrant bush and this evening I picked about a third of the fruit, 1.5 kg, I'm going to make some redcurrant curd with that,
my partner is not keen on redcurrant jelly, any suggestions what I can make with the rest, I have a nice redcurrant tart recipe but that won't use 3kg of redcurrants!

[peter]

Yes, four fifteen foot rows of Raspberries are yielding about three to four kilos every three days.
Try Redcurrent & Peach jelly.

[glallotments]

Redcurrant cheesecake.

Actually we make a sort of compote with out soft fruit including redcurrants and freeze it. We use it through the year to add to plain yoghurt to make our own fruit yoghurt. We also have it on porridge.

[Nature's Babe]

Thank you for the ideas, I made the redcurrant curd and it turned out lovely, adding the strained fruit to some beetroot chutney tomorrow, should add to the flavour

[Beryl]

Add some chopped mint when making red currant jelly. Delicious with cold meats.

I tend to freeze all my surplus soft fruit till later in the year when I have more time for jam making etc.

Beryl.

[Elaine]

Hi NB.
I tried a Red currant jam last year and it was very nice too, if you don't mind the seeds. I also did a black/red currant jam and a redcurrant/red gooseberry jam which were lovely.
I used some redcurrants in the strawberry jam as added pectin....lovely jam and an excellent set/fruit distribution/colour.
Our Joan Jay rasps are already berrying up too...I'm looking forward to these as it will be our first "proper" crop.
Cheers.

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Elaine, thank you for those suggestions, are Joan Jay rasps autumn fruiting? I will have to look those up, as I want to replace the early rasps with late ones.

[Elaine]

Hi NB. Yes, they are Autumn fruiting with the added bonus of being thornless. Just chop them down when they're finished, no faffing around tying in new canes etc. The fruits are lovely, good size, a purplish tinge to them and a real raspberry flavour.
They are quite vigorous too....but they don't really need any support.