I took a trip to Yorkshire last week and was given a massive bag of these giant cooking apples by my aunt, so they made the journey back to Herefordshire. Although rather like taking coals to Newcastle they were welcome as the tree in the garden has yet to produce anything like these.

Sometimes with chutney the temptation is to through a bit of everything in just to use up as many vegetables as possible. This courgette / marrow / green tomato / apple chutney being a good example.
This time I've decided to keep it simple and concentrate on just apples with a hefty helping of spices.

It's marrow time of year again, in the past I've made marrow and green tomato chutney. I enjoy growing marrows, they always remind me of beached whales as you find them washed up underneath the courgette leaves, finding something to do with them all is more of a problem.
Most years we're swamped with green tomatoes due to harvesting them all early when the blight takes hold, but this year our tomatoes didn't get blight so we're a bit short.
This recipe uses marrows and cooking apples, both of which are currently abundant, and a lot of fresh ginger, so should have quite a kick.

  See here for the marrow and ginger chutney recipe in more detail.

Finding elderberries relies somewhat on not picking all the elderflowers earlier in the year, or having to stray a little further from the obvious bushes.
I'd picked a small amount during a short walk earlier in the year and had frozen them for later use, as I sometimes sprinkle them in an apple crumble for a bit of colour.

I stumbled across this recipe for flavored vinegar while browsing the excellent eatweeds blog, and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

We're still working our way through a bountiful crop of quinces, the latest recipe being one for quince chutney.

I was drawn to this recipe, on the For The Love Of Food blog, because of the comparison with mango chutney and the suggestion that it would work well with Indian food, also I have never used juniper berries in a recipe and was keen to see what they were like.

This is a great recipe for using up a glut of damsons and green tomatoes, both of which I find can take you by surprise at this time of year.

I had for years wondered why we always produced masses of green tomatoes, usually blaming myself for not planting them out early enough, or the weather for not being sunny enough. While I'm sure these factors come in to play, I recently found out that a lot of people locally have the same tomato blight problem as we do, and while chatting about it had found out that a local market gardener has given up growing tomatoes outdoors. He had come to the conclusion that an increase in the amount of fields of potatoes in our area had caused such an increase in blight that it wasn't worth bothering.
I'd be tempted to not bother myself next year if it wasn't for recipes like this one, and the classic green tomato chutney.
They're a staple in our store cupboard and one we wouldn't go without.

We're still preserving our way through a lot of damsons, most have had their stones removed and have been frozen for later use, some have been made into chutney. A quick (apart from the maturing) and easy way of creating a warming winter drink is to use some for damson gin.

The method is very similar to sloe gin, and the result has the same deep purple colour. One benefit of using damsons is you can use the fruit afterward for a boozy fruit crumble.

Like a lot of people we always seem to get a glut of courgettes at this time of year, actually most of them are more worthy of being called marrows. We're also overflowing with cooking apples, and the tomatoes are looking like we're going have to pick them green before the dreaded blight makes it's annual visit.

All of this points towards using this excellent recipe based on the one Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall calls glutney on his river cottage blog. The beauty of Hugh's recipe is in it's adaptability, as long as you use 3kg of marrows / courgettes / pumpkins / tomatoes / apples the actual quantities are interchangeable.

Green Tomato Chutney is one of those things that you almost hope you don't have to make (apart from that it's delicious). It would be so much nicer to eat all the tomatoes in the red and juicy state that they should be, however the recent wet summers mean that there are often green tomatoes left at the end of the season. This is an ideal way to use them up.
I've never seen green tomatoes for sale anywhere, although I wouldn't be surprised if you could get them at some larger farmers markets. The ones I used were the last stragglers from the greenhouse, there were a few orange and red ones in there as well.

Nigel Slater has written a nice article about green tomatoes, which includes another recipe.

I have discovered sloes in our garden hedge, which I am very excited about as I had forgotten I'd planted blackthorn as part of the native hedge mix put in 5 years ago. I shall have to make some sloe gin.

Until a few weeks ago the stretch of hedge was inaccessible, but as part of landscaping the garden to create a lawn I reached it and gave it a well needed trim. Amongst the hawthorn and hazel I found six bushes of the small purple berries, which were confirmed as sloes by a experienced gin maker who happened to be visiting at the time.

Blackberry and apple jam is probably the favorite jam in this household, I'm in trouble if a batch doesn't get made every year. Not that it's a chore, as picking blackberries is a totally pleasurable way to pass the time, and making the glossy deep coloured jam one of the best things to do with the fruit.

We planted several blackberry canes in our boundary hedge, at the same time as the hedging plants. They are a thornless variety, which is a great idea, although not so if you plant them in a predominantly hawthorn hedge.  I try and use about half of this variety and half from the local hedgerows, the difference in size, flavour and texture between even just the canes round our local lanes is quite noticeable. Rather than go down the single variety route I feel this is one case where a blend of berries works well, adding interest to the finished jam. Anyway, I could never get enough of one variety to make it worth while.