So that was February ~ Welcome Spring

February a month of contrasts we've had snow and our younger tea room customers had fun building snowmen

and we had a February heatwave which saw customers sitting outside in their shirt sleeves and the scrub plum break into blossom. Bees and butterflies have made a brief reappearance.

In other news we've been writing the Orchard News section of The Jam Guild and Preserve Makers new quarterly digital magazine, "Simply Preserved"

Here are a couple of extracts first up from the winter edition:

"Odd to think that Britain’s most famous cooking apple,

Bramley’s Seedling, should by rights be known as
Brailsford’s Seedling as the first Bramley tree was grown
from seed, sometime between 1809 and 1813, by Mary
Brailsford of Southwell, Nottinghamshire.

It was after Mary’s death that the then owner of her cottage,
Matthew Bramley, allowed nursery man Henry Merryweather
to take grafts from the tree. Merryweather subsequently went
on to win a Royal Horticultural Society First Class Certificate
for Bramley’s Seedling in 1883 and the rest as they say is
history with Bramley apples being grown commercially from
the 1890’s onwards. Many a fruit growers fortune was made
from the Bramley, travel around Fenland villages and you’ll
come across quite a few large old houses bearing the name
“Bramley House”, named for the apple that enabled the
grower to build the house."


and from the February edition: 

"It’s a lovely time of year for a brisk walk around the orchard followed by tea and cake in front of the wood burner. Or, if it’s too cold to venture out a lovely time of year to enjoy cooking, and eating, a traditional Sunday roast dinner, not something we all have time for with our busy lives these days.

Here’s a family wartime recipe for apple mint jam which goes wonderfully with roast lamb though I admin to be rather partial to it on my roast potatoes never mind the meat :

1. Wash your apples and halve them before placing them in a pan of cold water.
2. Simmer until soft, remove from the heat.
3. Rub the pulp through a sieve into a measuring jug.
4. Return to pan with 3/4 lb of sugar for each pint of apple pulp along with a bunch of chopped mint.
5. Cook, stirring until the jam begins to set then jar in the normal manner."

Published on the digital platform issuu.com "Simply Preserved" is free to members of The Guild of Jam and Preserve Makers and is available to non-members for £2.50 per issue.

And now it's March and Spring with the 1st of March marking the first day of meteorological spring and the 20th of March the first day of astronomical spring.

But remember whether it's Springtime or not

"Ne're shed a clout till May be out"  

Opening Hours 10am-4pm daily

The Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop

Redmoor Lane

Begdale 

Elm

Wisbech

Cambs

PE14 0RN

Telephone: 07527 046184

Website: theorchardtearoom.co.uk Twitter: @OrchardTeaRoom Facebook: The Orchard Tea Room