The generous glut of a British growing year

By late August the hedgerows are heavy and the allotment is groaning. There are only so many crumbles a household can eat, and a limit to how many bags of damsons you can press on neighbours before they start avoiding you in the lane. Preserving is the old answer to that pleasant problem. A few hours at the stove in September gives you shelves of jam and chutney that carry the taste of the season through to February, when a spoonful on toast or beside a piece of cheese feels like a small act of defiance against the grey.

You need very little kit and no special training. If you can weigh sugar and stir a pan, you can make preserves that keep for a year.

Start with spotless, sterilised jars

Everything depends on hygiene. A jar that has held something mouldy will spoil a perfectly good batch, so wash thoroughly and sterilise just before filling. Any of these methods works well:

• Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse, then stand them upside down in an oven at 140°C for 15 minutes.
• Run them through a hot dishwasher cycle and leave them shut inside until they are bone dry.
• Fill each jar with boiling water, stand for a few minutes, then drain and turn upside down on a clean tea towel.

Keep the jars hot while you fill them — a cold jar can crack when hot jam hits it. Chutney needs vinegar-proof lids, so use plastic-coated metal or proper preserving lids, not bare steel, which will corrode and taint the contents.

Jam: equal weights and a rolling boil

The classic ratio is beautifully simple: for every 1kg of prepared fruit, use 1kg of granulated sugar. Nothing else is strictly necessary except a little lemon juice for low-pectin fruit.

• Prepare the fruit — wash, hull, stone or peel as needed. Soft fruit can go in whole; apples, quinces and hard plums need softening in a splash of water first.
• Warm the sugar in a low oven. It dissolves far more quickly and shortens the cooking time.
• Cook the fruit gently until tender, then add the sugar and stir over a low heat until no grains remain visible. This is the step people rush, and it is the one that produces gritty jam.
• Turn up the heat and bring it to a rolling boil — one that cannot be stirred down — and hold it there for 8 to 15 minutes.
• Test the set by dropping a teaspoon onto a chilled saucer. Let it cool, push it with a finger; if the surface wrinkles, it is ready. A sugar thermometer should read 104–105°C.

Pectin matters. Strawberries, rhubarb and cherries are low in it, so add the juice of a lemon or a handful of gooseberries or redcurrants. Blackcurrants, damsons, plums and apples set easily on their own.

Chutney: slower, sharper, and better for waiting

Chutney takes the fruit you would never put in a jam — green tomatoes, windfall apples, marrows, the last hard plums — and turns it into something dark, savoury and rich. The method is forgiving, which is exactly why it suits a glut.

• Chop everything roughly. Texture is part of the pleasure.
• Use malt, cider or distilled vinegar — roughly 500ml for every 2kg of fruit and vegetables.
• Add 500–750g of soft brown or demerara sugar for depth and colour.
• Season with salt, mustard seed, ginger, chilli, cloves and coriander seed. Toast whole spices first to wake them up.
• Simmer uncovered for one to three hours, stirring often, until thick and glossy and no liquid runs when you draw a spoon through.

Resist eating it straight away. Chutney needs four to six weeks to mellow, during which the vinegar bite softens and the flavours marry.

Potting, labelling and the winter payoff

Fill jars to within a few millimetres of the rim, seal while hot, and label with the contents and the date. Store in a cool, dark, dry cupboard — a larder or garage shelf is ideal. Jam keeps well for a year or more; chutney improves for several. Once opened, move the jar to the fridge.

If a jam develops a fuzzy layer of mould, throw the whole jar away rather than scraping the top off. The mould's threads run right through, even when you cannot see them.

Small habits that save a batch

• Never double a jam recipe. A huge pan takes an age to reach a rolling boil and the set suffers — make two batches instead.
• Stir only until the sugar dissolves, then leave the jam mostly alone so it reaches temperature quickly.
• Skim the scum with a slotted spoon and keep it in a little pot for the fridge; it is lovely on porridge.
• Write the date on every label. It is astonishing how quickly an unmarked jar becomes a mystery.

Come January, when the fruit aisle is full of imports and the garden is bare, you will open a jar of damson or green tomato chutney and find the whole summer waiting inside it.