For the past few weeks we have been enjoying the sight of fruit decorating our crab apple tree (Malus Sylvestris ‘John Downie’). The vivid red and yellow apples seemed to glow against the other colours of the garden. However, I decided to harvest them yesterday and begin the process of making crab apple jelly. It was just as well I did as, on closer inspection my impression that they were beginning to turn was confirmed and, after trimming out the bad bits, I only had about quarter of a kilo left.

However, that should be enough to make a pot or two of jelly. Above you can see the cut pieces just after I had put them onto the hob. I have been straining out the resulting mush and today plan to boil the juice with sugar, which should yield at least a jar of crab apple jelly.

It is a smaller gleaning than I had hoped for but at least we enjoyed them visually for a long time. If the recipe works well, I know of at least one local tree growing wild where I can harvest a lot more.