Crab apple jelly

[British Red]

A couple of years back we planted a weeping crab apple. The main purpose of this was to act as a pollinator for the apples in our young orchard. We hoped that this. coupled with our bees would greatly increase our apple yield over time. It certainly worked this year - the bees were all over the blossom.

As a result we have a lot of nice looking crab apples


Weeping crab apple by British Red, on Flickr


Crab Apples by British Red, on Flickr

Its only a very young tree, but we got five pounds of crab apples


Crab apple harvest by British Red, on Flickr

Now crab apples are a great source of liquid pectin and I wanted to make my own for next years jam. I left it too long though as, according to the books, they should be processed green for pectin. So I decided to process them into crab apple jelly which is the same process with some more steps.

Its a remarkably simple process

Wash the crab apples, put in a pan and nearly cover with water. People say you should destalk but I don't bother.


Cover in water by British Red, on Flickr

Bring to the boil - the skins will burst


Skins burst by British Red, on Flickr

Simmer for half an hour until soft and pulpy


Cooked down by British Red, on Flickr

Ladle the pulp into a jelly bag and leave to drip through overnight


Jelly bag by British Red, on Flickr

In the morning you have a big bowl of liquid pectin - this can be bottled and saved for jam making. Clearly it would be brown / green with unripe fruit.


strained juice by British Red, on Flickr

For crab apple jelly weigh the juice into a pan and add 70% of the weight of juice in sugar. I added a few chopped chillis for zing.


Add sugar and lemon by British Red, on Flickr

Bring to the boil and boil for 40 minutes - a scum will form and should be skimmed off


Boil syrup by British Red, on Flickr

Skimming off the scum makes the jelly clear


Skimmed syrup by British Red, on Flickr

Boil some jars and, when the jelly will set on a chilled saucer, ladle it in


Warmed jars by British Red, on Flickr

Seal tightly and leave to cool


Finished crab apple jelly by British Red, on Flickr

Simple

A nice by product of a tree for pollination. Quite a sharp taste with the chilli - but a nice accompaniment to chicken or cold meat.

 

[xylaria]

Super pink colour. Intresting idea with the chilli. I was looking for some variation on mixed spice or ginger. Our crab apple tree flunked this year, the blossom got a late frost. However the one of the later cropping trees snapped last month under the wieght of fruit.

 

[British Red]

I like "chilli jam" as a relish with cold meat and I guess this is a compromise between straight crab apple and chilli jam. From the hardness of the set I got, liquid pectin would not have been a problem!

We had to cull two thirds of the fruit from our young apple trees or they would have gone the way of yours!

 

[xylaria]

I dont have much experiance of growing fruit trees, I certainly have never had such a glut year with any of mine before.

 

[British Red]

We were told to pick all the fruit off for the first year (which we did) and thin down a lot for at least five years. We had to this year because thin branches were massed with huge apples!

Its the pruning that took me a couple of years to learn - I'm still getting our trees into that "wine glass" shape slowly - but you can't rush it. I'm going to remove the main leaders from the centre of some of the more mature trees in a month or two when they go dormant....a bit nerve wracking that!

 

[santaman2000]

We were told to pick all the fruit off for the first year (which we did) and thin down a lot for at least five years.....

Certainly different than I'm used to. Out crabapple trees are all wild and don't live five years. But then our crabapples are also green even when ripe and much smaller than those.

Looks great!

 

[xylaria]

We were told to pick all the fruit off for the first year (which we did) and thin down a lot for at least five years. We had to this year because thin branches were massed with huge apples!

Its the pruning that took me a couple of years to learn - I'm still getting our trees into that "wine glass" shape slowly - but you can't rush it. I'm going to remove the main leaders from the centre of some of the more mature trees in a month or two when they go dormant....a bit nerve wracking that!

My trees are quite small, they were bought as bare rooted 3ft about four years ago. Most pruning has been done by accident. One tree got the ferret cage land on it in a gale, another got snapped when a certain drunk landed on it, another got shot with an air rifle pellet. I will adopt a better pruning program.

I fertilise with wood ash and bone meal.

 

[British Red]

The RHS pruning guide (and an elderly neighbour who is a horticulturalist) have been a godsend to me Xylaria. Very cheap second hand on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0751302074/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

I'm using fish blood and bone as a fertiliser.

I can photograph pruning my apple trees when I do it if you like?

 

[Albus Culter]

Great post as ever. Sadly I've never tried crab apple jelly so I think a will have to get picking when next out.

 

[Goatboy]

Nice looking crabs and the jelly looks like bottled rubies. Very nice. I do like pruning, started on roses and then on to trees, it is a skill and an art form successful pruning and so very satisfying. Love it, but those initial snips can be full of tension like you say.
Great discussion as ever sir.

GB.

 

[British Red]

Sadly I've never tried crab apple jelly

Its a great base and nice on its own too. Packed with pectin so anything you add will set. I may try one with Guelder rose next year to make a faux cranberry sauce for Yule.

 

[British Red]

Nice looking crabs and the jelly looks like bottled rubies. Very nice. I do like pruning, started on roses and then on to trees, it is a skill and an art form successful pruning and so very satisfying. Love it, but those initial snips can be full of tension like you say.
Great discussion as ever sir.

GB.

Its quite nerve wracking for the first couple of years huh? Especially taking 2/3 of the branches off from fruit trees! I'm still learning but would love to try grafting too.

 

[Goatboy]

Its quite nerve wracking for the first couple of years huh? Especially taking 2/3 of the branches off from fruit trees! I'm still learning but would love to try grafting too.

Grafting is fun, never had that much experience but have tried a few fruit salad trees* with a bit of success in mates gardens. It still blows my mind that.

*In addition to propagating trees on rootstocks designed to control size/vigour and confer disease resistance, grafting above the rootstock can be used to provide multiple cultivars of a single species, known as a family tree, or, within certain limits, cultivars of different fruit species on one tree, often known as a fruit salad tree. Family trees typically combine several cultivars (two or three being most common) of apple, pear or a given species of stonefruit on a single rootstock, while fruit salad trees typically carry two or more different species from within a given genus, such as plum, apricot, and peach or mandarin orange, lemon, and lime. Certain combinations, including sour cherry (prunus cerasus)/sweet cherry (prunus avium), although from the same genus, are known to be difficult, although successes have sometimes been reported. Other grafts of this kind can produce the Pomato.

 

[daveO]

If anyone has pet rabbits they love the twigs you prune off the apple trees.

I'm making more crab apple wine this year as the last lot was excellent. I might give this a go too though since there's so many crabs this year.

 

[British Red]

My trees are quite small, they were bought as bare rooted 3ft about four years ago. Most pruning has been done by accident. One tree got the ferret cage land on it in a gale, another got snapped when a certain drunk landed on it, another got shot with an air rifle pellet. I will adopt a better pruning program.

I fertilise with wood ash and bone meal.

I was working on our "baby orchard" today and thought some pictures on how we are pruning and why might be of interest

This is a wineglass / goblet pruned apple tree


Wine Glass Pruned Apple Tree by British Red, on Flickr

If you look carefully, the centre is an open bowl shape - this allows light and air into the middle of the tree allowing the fruit to ripen and giving access for picking. No branches cross causing branch rubbing or dense thickets where the fruit can be reached. If you look carefully you can see the branches come from the main trunk and the after a couple of feet "fan out" - this shows where a branch was cut back.

This is another apple pruned that way


Goblet pruned apple tree by British Red, on Flickr

and a pear likewise


Wine Glass Pruned Pear Tree by British Red, on Flickr

What we are aiming for based on MM106 (or similar) rootstocks here is for fruiting growth to start at about the 4' level and finish about the 10'-12' mark. This should give a large, vigorous, open tree with easy access to the fruit. We frankly didn't see the point in apple trees where the fruit is 20' up

Today's task has been to apply fish blood and bone at about 100g per square metre


Fish Blood and Bone by British Red, on Flickr

This is part of our baby orchard three years in - I hope you can see the "neatness" we are trying to achieve in the trees (for practical harvesting reasons). It is hard work for the first few years and means we are delaying our current returns in favour of future productivity


Cottage Orchard by British Red, on Flickr

Anyway - that's our approach - I can heartily recommend the RHS pruning guide if you are as much in the dark as we were on fruit tree growing

Red

 

[Macaroon]

Very interesting post, this one; I'm going to plant a couple of fruit trees when I've got my shed built and a couple of other structural things sorted. It's a very small space and with limited access, so I have to be sure all the big stuff is done properly before I commit to permanent planting but the info here will be very useful.

@ Xylaria: I think you should name and shame the Drunken Pruner!