Harvest Festival and the month of plenty

Are you feeling blue with the evenings drawing in, children back to school and the prospect of winter coming?

Well pick yourself up as we are in the month of plenty!

September is the best month for an overflow of produce from gardens, hedgerows and fields. This is the month of the Harvest Festival and a celebration of fresh, seasonal, local food. Traditionally there would have been church services followed by barn dances with cider a plenty at this time of year. The whole community would have been involved with bringing in the harvest before the winter storms broke. We all know the cry ‘Too many marrows what can I do with them?’! Not only are we in the month of harvest but it is also the month when there is a frenzy of preservation: bottling, pickling, fermenting, dehydrating and freezing.

I have many happy memories of picking gluts of runner beans making chutneys, par-boiling for the freezer and setting into jars full of salt.

I still preserve the season and love finding new recipes to do so. On of my favourites is Green Tomato Marmalade as we are always left with some green tomatoes before the season ends due to the sun fading in the autumn months. I would like to share this with you and hope you can enjoy this on your toast during those winter months reminiscing about the harvest.

Enjoy and pay homage to the harvest.

Yvette