The gardening edition ... medlars

It really has been a fruity gardening week or two here at ACC. We’ve had lots of posts relating to gardening.

And the latest thing on our radar is medlars … have you ever heard of them?

Fairfield neighbour Bernie, who has come along to Preserves Group in the past, contacted us with a donation of some medlars - a fruit that looks a lot like a big rosehip and that tastes quite a lot like very ripe apricot (I think anyway).

Along with the fruit she gave us a recipe to make medlar jelly which, a bit like quince jelly, will have a lovely floral scent. And she also explained the process of bletting - where we have to leave the fruit out for a couple of weeks to go really soft and squishy, just like you would with a persimmon.

It is quite bizarre, because they are ready to eat when they look quite brown and rotten … but the skin peels off easily and they actually taste quite nice. Bernie says she often just eats them with cheese and biscuits at this point, and I can imagine this would be quite delicious.

If you are interested in finding out more about this unusual and ancient fruit, which has been around since Roman times, you can check them out on the bench in room 2 if you are passing by … they’re in some wooden trays under a cloth doing the bletting thing - take a peek.

Or let us know if you’d like to be involved in the day of jelly making … it will probably be on Friday morning this week or next (when the fruit is ripe enough to use).

Email us here if you are keen to join in. And thanks Bernie for the fruit donation and education!