Hello Dhaaarlings...
I've spent the last few weeks picking an enormous quantity of fresh Apricots ripe from the tree in the back yard and frankly I'm exhausted...
There is only so much Jam Making and Bottling/Canning that one can do with the huge crop of fruit that we have had this year...
It has been an exceptional season!
Fortunately the fruit ripened gradually over the two to three weeks which meant that we didn't have a Glut of ripe fruit all at one time.
But... with Christmas and New Year festivities occurring over the same period it just made finding the time for processing a little more difficult to manage...
This is the tree almost stripped of fruit... and surrounded by split and rotting fruit strewn on the ground beneath it...
Here is one of the remaining clusters of fruit...and these are quite small in comparison to what we have already picked and processed.
Every branch was covered and I mean COVERED in clusters of beautiful plump ripening apricots just like these. I've never seen a tree with so much fruit on it before...
I've turned 6 kilo of it into jam... The Empress Bottled/ Canned at least 20 kilo's! We have another 10 kilo that we have frozen whole to make jam later in the year plus...
given away another 15 kg frozen
to neighbours and friends to make jam... and...
That's without counting the fresh fruit that we have also given away to friends and family... consumed ourselves or... that had gone rotten and had to be thrown out because we just ran out of time to process them... Nor does it include the fruit that remains on or under the tree that had been eaten by the local critters, birds, nocturnal fruit bats and the occasional rat.
All this from one tree!
We certainly won't starve for a little while at least!
Apricot Jam Anyone?
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