After the early peaches have peaked, it is time for the maxed-out berry season. This week we will pick a couple of kilos of youngberries from our canes each day, some times its 3 kgs in a pick. Janine has developed several recipes for using these deliciously tangy, sweet acidy berries, but there are so many that come into season so quickly, we can’t eat them all fresh from the canes. The best way to cope with the peak is to preserve them in vacuum jars. We use them later to make fruit jelly desert, or a jar of the preserved pulp is used in a berry baked sponge desert in the winter.

Yesterday we picked just over 3 kgs. The panty is already well stocked, she made red berry juice by heating the berries in a big pan. No added water, just simmered in their own juice, sieved through a kitchen mouli, to remove the seeds, then bottled while still hot. It’ll keep for a year in the pantry.

Another favourite at this time is to use the berry juice to make a fruit/suger syrup for use in icecream. Berry ice cream is a very nice desert. Janine makes this very simply by mixing some berry juice sryup in with a packet of pure cream, then whipping it and freezing it. The mixture needs to be taken out of the freezer twice a day and re-whisked the next day to make it more fluffy. That’s it, cream suger and berries. Couldn’t be more basic, simple and deliciously fruity and tangy, totally natural and no added chemicals. Maybe the sugar and the dairy fat content of this recipe should carry a warning not to over-do it! A very small bowl of this after a nice meal in summer is pretty special.