Today has been a harvest day in the back garden – lots of tomatoes and over 13kg of apples! That’s great but it also demands attention. Some apples will keep quite well but, even if we had an apple with every meal, I don’t think we’d get through them in time. Furthermore, some start off with minor blemishes and bruises, so the clock is even closer to running out for them. That means we’re facing what is called ‘the tyranny of abundance’.

So far, I’ve got a batch of tomatoes in the dehydrator (jewel-like home-dried tomatoes were a treasure we discovered last year) and a large batch of apples chopped up and cooked into a pulp, which I’ll strain tomorrow morning. Still plenty more of both to work through but a start has been made. Meanwhile, although it feels like a tyranny in the short term, we remind ourselves to be grateful both for the harvest and for the ability to process it.