This year has been a lifetime peak in terms of preserving, fermenting and such. I’ve been brewing ginger beer all through spring and summer, and it is still going now, at the start of our winter. That’s my second starter, since given away on the Buy Nothing group.
I made mint jelly. I didn’t know it was really apple jelly + mint (nor did my mother, who used to make her own mint sauce)! Here it is before the mint was added.
Bread and butter pickles (pickled cucumbers and onion with dill and mustard seeds). This is a new one on me but I must say I like it! I’ve made sauerkraut and something that gestures toward Kim chi as well.
I dried my own prunes! (some of them were crunchy due to inexperience). I also dried sliced red plums, which I’ve been adding to porridge.
I had a gift of local big, fat olives. I’ve never preserved these before, but now that I make olive and rosemary bread above all others, we use a lot of olives, so why not? I have kilograms in brine at this stage…
While we were collecting leaves in the street (for mulch and compost, both of which required explanation to disbelieving neighbours) I asked the crabapple tree owner if he wanted the fruit from his tree. There were not enough for a lot of crabapple jelly, but certainly enough for me to want to make it again! And all this, after the passata making, the apple and pear preserving, and the jam and marmalade making. Too good. It is amazing to have so much delicious food coming our way.
Local & Bespoke 
Just sitting reading your post over breakfast of toast with homemade marmalade and apricot jam from our own trees. My brother-in-law just gifted us some of his sourdough starter and my partner is making some very good bread from it. For his birthday he got an air still, so homemade gin is here, flavoured with juniper berries, coriander seeds and yuzu from our own fruit. Rather yummy as it turns out!
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Wow! How wonderful! Washing from all the way over here!
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That would be waving, not washing!
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Wow, you must be needing hundreds of jars, wish I lived closer to give you some. I have a bush lemon that produces 100’s of kilos of beautiful fruit every year, other than the marmalade, preserved lemons etc. I have been making lemoncello, a traditional Italian recipe using raw honey….it’s delicious. We had a glut of limes this year so the limecello is underway too. Happy preserving
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I wish I lived closer to you, too! Your preserving sounds so delicious. My parents are caught in a fruit fly zone so I’m headed to their house to help them out with their heavily laden lemon tree this week. I think lemon cuts, preserved lemons and frozen juice and zest are the plan so far… how wonderful to have a bumper crop of limes!
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