Jammin’ all through the summer

It’s the age old conundrum isn’t it - when the fruit is ripe and you want to preserve it by making jam, the weather is hot and the kitchen is stifling. The last thing you want to do is stand over a rapidly boiling pan for an hour.

Luckily for us in the Scottish highlands, we’ve barely had a summer at all this year. Today as I type it’s a cool 13°C out there, and raining. The sort of day when jam making feels like a good thing to be doing.

The most delicious jam of all the varieties that I made earlier this year was the rhubarb and orange. I was totally addicted to it. I ate it at every opportunity and shared jars of it generously, only to soon realise that I hadn’t made nearly enough if I was to be able to enjoy it in the colder months.

This is now my third batch of rhubarb jam this year, only made possible by the variety of rhubarb that we’ve grown.

When we planted our rhubarb patch we added four plants of the variety 'Poulton's Pride' , which is a unique, modern type known for lacking summer dormancy, allowing it to crop continuously from early March through to September, offering exceptionally long harvests compared to more traditional types.

This has meant that the rhubarb stalks have kept growing whereas the more traditional varieties such as Timperley Early or Rhubarb Red, which we also have growing, are now in their rest period storing up energy for winter.

We picked what will probably be the last of the seasons crop this morning, and I immediately turned it into more jam.

The pantry jam stash is looking a bit more replenished now, thank goodness.

I have also had a stern word with myself about giving so much away. The trouble is that friends who have received a jar of it are fulsome in their praise and are always angling for a second jar, and I don’t want to disappoint them. It shall have to be tough love from now on. I want to be eating this on toasted sourdough in December as the snow falls so I will have to be miserly with my gifts.

And I wish we’d planted more Poultons Pride.