Domesticity

When we moved into our new house a year ago one of the first things we did was to plant a crab apple tree. I've ALWAYS wanted a blossom tree and after reading a magazine article about how fantastic crab apple trees are my lovely hubbie agreed decided a crab apple would be better than a cherry tree as we could make jelly. Come spring the tree was covered in gorgeous blossom, ooh I just love it!



I still wasn't convinced that we would actually have apples come the autumn. But low and behold we did. Unfortunately we lost quite a few of our apples in the BIG winds in September and an emergency mission was launched one Friday morning before work to rescue the rest.
Having consulted the WI and made a trip to Lakeland we were all set.
The apples were chopped and stewed with cinnamon

and strained through this great contraption (oops, think hubbie needs some new slippers) to produce this.

The juice and sugar were then boiled to give the set and we produced a whole 1 jar and a little bit of crab apple jelly. It's not much I know but considering the tree has only been in the ground for a year and so many apples were lost to the weather (and the cats) I'm very proud of our little tree. And next year having practiced on this we should be able to cope with the huge crop of apples our tree will provide.