Myrtles, Medlars and Melon Pears

As usual, autumn brings fruits, but some of them are a little out of the ordinary.  And you know us – we like to blend the ordinary with the extraordinary and try a few experiments . . .

Several years ago, when visiting the Eden Project in Cornwall, we picked up a little plant called Myrtus ugni, otherwise known as a fruiting myrtle or sometimes called 'the Chilean Guava'.  I can't remember exactly what the 'blurb' said about it, but it sounded interesting and we thought we would give it a go.

Since then, we have propagated several cuttings and now have a number of bushes growing along the boundary of our back garden.  Every year, we seem to get a slightly bigger harvest of the berries, which have a distinctive and aromatic scent and flavour.  And yes, it is a little like the flavour of guava – they are related.  Apparently, Queen Victoria was given some of them when visiting Cornwall one year and from then on requested that a basket of the little fruits be sent to her every year.  In previous years, we have made small quantities of cordial and jam from these and – needless to say – they have disappeared very quickly to the fortunate customers who called at just the right time.

This year, we have already picked many more than in previous years, and we haven't finished yet, so hopefully that will mean a few more bottles of cordial and jars of jam.  We will put them on our price lists when they are ready – keep an eye open for Myrtle Berry Jam and Cordial!

Last year, we found two more unusual fruits, one we planned for and one that was a surprise.  In early October, we were given some quinces by a friend in the village and he also offered us some other smaller fruits: "Don't know what these are" he said.  They were Medlars, a strange-looking fruit a little like a small apple to look at, but very 'open-ended', which gave rise to many rude names for them in the Middle Ages!  They are completely inedible when freshly ripe, but once they have begun to 'blet' (get soft and almost rotten), they have a delicious taste and can be made into jelly, jam or 'cheese'.  We made a little jam and jelly last year and, once again, those jars seemed to fly off the shelf!  This year, we have been allowed to pick as many as we like from the tree belonging to a generous Lapford resident, so there should be many more jars – and we may try making some Medlar Cordial as well!

The unusual fruit which we did plan for is called a Melon Pear or Pepino Melon.  They come from South America and 'Pepino' means 'cucumber' in Spanish, but these are not related to cucumbers, melons or pears!  Members of the family which includes tomatoes, peppers and chillies, they do taste quite like melons, with fresh and slightly sweet flesh.  We are watching them ripen to their characteristic colours – light golden-yellow with purple stripes – and we expect to have a few to offer in the coming weeks.  I think they will be popular here, as they already are in some fashionable circles!  All being well, we hope to grow a few more in the polytunnel in 2025.

First 2024 Batch of Cucumber Relish !

This Sweet & Sour Cucumber Relish has got to be our most popular jar!  Several times this summer we have been asked "Have you got some of your lovely Cucumber Relish?"  It seems that its fame has spread.  

No credit to us for the recipe; we found it in a book years ago, when we were trying out lots of different cucumber varieties and found ourselves with a glut!  We made some relish and liked it, so made some more and found that other folk liked it too.  Now we need to grow LOTS of cucumbers every year to try to keep up with the demand for the relish – as well as selling the really tasty little cucumbers themselves!

After a good start (see our previous post), our cucumbers seemed to go on strike.  Quite a lot of flowers, a few embryo cukes, but then many of them dropped off and only very few became proper cucumbers.  It seems that the pollinating insects were probably on strike, so they had not been visiting our polytunnel very much.

But now, in the last few weeks, there has been a steady buzz of bees in the tunnel, as they have definitely discovered the cucumbers now – and the cucamelons, which are also in good production.  Hopefully lots more cucumbers (and relish) now on the way.

In theory – and according to the recipe – you should leave this relish for 'at least a month' to mature in the jar.  But we know quite a few people (ourselves included) who are not very likely to want to wait that long!

Cucumbers and Tomatoes on the Way !

 We started picking the very first of our lovely little 'Tamra' cucumbers just a few days ago, and have been looking at our tomato plants every day to see when the first one would begin to ripen . . .

Well, today Dave spotted the first signs of ripening on one of the plants, and here it is, our first tomato of 2024 !

Once again, it is the variety 'Stupice' (apparently pronounced 'Stoopeachkay') and, as the Real Seeds website says, "This fantastic 1954 variety from Eastern Europe is the earliest of all our vine tomatoes."  Every year that we have grown it, it has been the first to ripen, so we go on growing it . . .

. . . along with 26 other varieties, a total of 63 plants!  Red ones, yellow ones, orange ones and pink ones.  Different shapes, too – big 'oxhearts' – deeply ribbed ones – small translucent yellow ones – long 'plum' tomatoes, small pear-shaped ones and some really gigantic (and sometimes quite ugly) ones, as well as your more 'normal' round ones, large and small.  Here they all are:
  https://www.blackberrylane.co.uk/PDFs/Tomatoes2024.pdf

And we grow them all because they taste as tomatoes should taste* – really delicious, with that wonderful fresh tangy flavour.  We can hardly wait until we are back to eating our own home-grown tomatoes again, very soon.

And you can join us!  They will be on the pricelist on our website soon.

* John Denver wrote a song about them!  Here's a YouTube link to him singing it . . .

Blackberry Lane Tools is Changing Hands !

     We started selling specialist garden tools in 2004 and have greatly enjoyed our role in supplying quality tools to gardeners of all descriptions – from hesitant beginners to experienced market gardeners and everyone in between!  In these 17/18 years, we have witnessed an exciting growth in the number of people starting out with small vegetable growing enterprises, and have felt privileged to be able to provide some of the equipment which they need.  Blackberry Lane Tools has grown beyond our wildest expectations, and has left us less time to spend on our own small market garden.

    Faced with having too much to do and not enough time to do it all, plus the fact that we are both well past 'retirement age' and have many other demands on our time and energies, the logical thing might have been to give up the physical work in the garden and concentrate on the tools.  But then we thought about it:  "If we need to either give up the tools and work in the market garden, or give up the market garden and work on the tools, which would we be most sorry to give up?"  We love both of them, but working on the land is closer to our heart, so it was the tools that needed to go!

    So, for the last couple of years, we have been looking for someone to take on the tools sales business.  It has not been easy to find the right person!

    We have now agreed with Dave Maine, of ReAg Tools in Somerset, that he will take on our complete range of tools with immediate effect.  Dave is a keen market gardener himself, and already sells a selection of tools via his website at www.reagtools.co.uk .  Interestingly, quite a number of these are tools which our customers have asked us about in the past, so it makes a lot of sense to combine the two ranges.

    Our Blackberry Lane Tools website will continue to operate for the time being, but it will re-direct customers on to Dave's website and he will handle all the tools sales.  He may decide to take on the Blackberry Lane site at a later stage.

    We shall also continue with this blog, but it will concentrate much more on the 'growing' side of things.  Somehow, though, I think that some future references to tools are bound to creep in – old habits die hard !

    As we 'bow out' of the gardening tools business, we should like to say 'thank you' to all our customers, large and small, recent and long-established.  It has been a real pleasure to be part of your gardening and growing life.

    With our very best wishes,

    Dave & Val Taylor

Cucumber Relish Back in Stock !

One of the top favourites on our shelves of jars has always been Sweet and Sour Cucumber Relish.  Every year, we try to make more than we did the previous year, but every year we sell out, so we have been disappointing some customer for several weeks now, ever since we sold the last of the 2020 jars.

Well, our cucumbers have been doing well again this year, though a little later that usual (it HAS been a strange season!), and we made our first 2021 batch of Relish at the end of August.

Frustratingly, it needs to mature for at least a month, so we have not been able to sell any (or eat any ourselves) until just a few days ago, but now the first batch is ready.

Don't worry, we have gone on making more batches right through September, so we don't expect to sell out just yet!  So far, we have produced 70 jars and the cucumbers are still flourishing in the polytunnel.

The Back Story . . .

In 2015, we tried growing cucumbers a little more seriously, trying to find a variety we really liked and which grew well for us.  We had grown them before, of course, but there were lots of different varieties.  We had grown 'Burpless Tasty Green' with some success, but we were beginning to move away from F1 varieties and tried a few others as well.

And then we had a problem!  We had so many cucumbers that we couldn't sell them all – or eat them ourselves!  We needed a recipe to 'do something' with cucumbers, and found it in 'Preserving' by Emma Macdonald, a book that was already sitting on our kitchen bookshelf.

We made the relish and liked it, so we tried it on our customers – and they liked it, too!

So, now we have a different 'problem' – not really a problem at all.  The relish is so popular that we need to make sure to grow LOTS of cucumbers every year!  We seem to grow more each year, and still the relish sells out before the next batch is ready.

And the cucumber variety we finally settled on?  'Tamra' , a short and sweet cucumber, not bitter like so many can be.  Very popular with our customers – and it makes excellent relish!

'Tamra' is available from The Real Seed Company, along with many other non-hybrid seeds.  As this is a true variety and not a hybrid, we can save our own seed, and have been doing so for a few years.

Better Than The EarthWay Seeder ? We Think So!

We have been stocking EarthWay Seeders from the very early days of our Blackberry Lane Online Toolshop.  Why?  Because we had already been using our own EarthWay for several years and were very pleased with it.  It was saving us so much time – and seed!

Since then, we have developed an ongoing relationship with the company that has been importing EarthWay products from the USA for the UK and European market.

Earlier this year, we heard of their plans to develop their own replacement for the EarthWay and of course we were very interested.

So, the Cresco SRS (Single Row Seeder) is now in production and will very soon be released for sale in the UK.  

As you can see, it looks VERY similar to the EarthWay Seeder and in practice it is a straight replacement, with some small but significant improvements.

It comes with its own set of 10 seed discs and – GOOD NEWS – these discs are compatible with the EarthWay and vice versa.

Because the Cresco SRS will be selling at a significantly lower price than the EarthWay, we have decided to stop selling both the EarthWay Seeder and the cheaper all-plastic Easy Sower from Denmark in order to concentrate on the Cresco.

We shall continue to sell seed plates and other spares for the EarthWay as long as the importers hold stocks of them, but we expect to gradually move over completely to the Cresco.

We are just waiting for 2 things now:

    1)  A price for the Cresco SRS    and

    2)  Some Crescos to sell !!

We will update our website as soon as we have them in stock but, if you would like us to tell you when they are in, please drop us an email.

Multi-Row Seeders – Discussion invited!

One of the items that we get asked about quite often is the Johnnys Seeds 6-Row Seeder from the USA.  It seems excellent but it is expensive, especially to import to the UK.  This one is pushed forwards.

A few years ago, one of our customers seemed confident that he was going to be able to get something very similar produced for the UK market, but unfortunately that came to nothing.

More recently, I have become aware of the Sembdner 4-Row Seeder from Germany and have enquired about importing to the UK.  Cost about £150, plus any Customs charges and/or import VAT.  Seems to be the same as Johnnys Seeds sell as a 4-Row Pinpoint Seeder.  Some slightly negative reviews on YouTube, mainly related to the axle being a little stiff.  This one is pulled backwards.

Both the 6-Row and 4-Row Seeders above have a selection of dimples in their axles, and the correct size of dimple for the seed you are sowing is selected by sliding the axles from side to side.

Another one of interest is the Varomorus (also under different names) which is sold through eBay and seems to get some positive reviews on YouTube.  The 5-Row version is shown, but the same chassis is also available in 2-, 3- or 4-Row versions.  The hopper/seeder units are removable and movable.  This one has its dimples on removable sleeves, so more work needed to change over seed sizes.  Also pulled backwards.   Cost around £110 delivered, plus any Customs and/or import VAT.

I have not yet used any of these, but you may have done!  If so, it seems that there is a demand for multi-row seeders and there may be many other growers who would value your feedback.

PLEASE submit your comments and I will very quickly OK them for publication on this blog.