FOUNDER OF HEN CORNER Sara Ward

As a child, I spent wet-weather days with my nose in a book. I loved the poems of AA Milne and learnt several off by heart. My favourite was The King’s Breakfast about a tired royal cow trying to convince the king to let him have marmalade on his toast rather than butter. I recite it to myself while making marmalade each January.

The first time I made it, I bought a whole batch of Seville oranges because of their bitterness and I wanted a preserve with a balanced taste. I decided to make as much as I could, quadrupling the recipe so that I could fill the large jars I’d been hoarding for the occasion. I crammed my biggest saucepan to the brim with chopped fruit and sugar. I started on a low heat and looked forward to many jars of golden goodness.

What a mistake. When I make chutneys, I find that it reduces as it cooks, but it turns out that jams and marmalades are quite different. They need a lot of space, as they double, if not treble, in size as the sugary juices boil to the perfect set. Each time the mixture

Sara and her family have transformed the garden of their Victorian terrace house into a mini smallholding, complete with 20 hens, two beehives, a kitchen garden and micro-bakery (hencorner.com)

LOCATION

Brentford, west London

PLOT SIZE

12 square metres

EXPERIENCE

Sara started farming in her garden in 2007 with vegetables, later followed by hens, fruit trees and bees

I was looking forward to many jars of golden goodness to be eaten throughout the year

started to simmer, I had to turn down the heat to stop the pan boiling over. Meanwhile, I scurried around the kitchen, decanting the hot sticky liquid into as many other pans as I could find (even utilising a wok), so that it could expand as much as it needed to. Eventually,

I was able to pour it into the sterilised jars to cool, vowing never to make that messy mistake again. (The marmalade, however, was delicious.)

Making marmalade allows us to harvest a crop when it’s in peak condition and transform it into something that can be enjoyed throughout the year. Seville oranges are ready to pick in January and most of them are sent to the UK, which is a great boon for us. I would recommend looking for sustainable organic fruit that’s shipped rather than air-freighted (for environmental reasons) and choosing British or Fairtrade cane sugar (again, on environmental – and ethical – ones). I buy Seville oranges from Abel & Cole (abelandcole.co.uk), but for a larger order, get together with friends and order directly from a farm such as Ave María Ecological Oranges (huertaavemaria.com). MEET SARA at the Country Living Spring Fair in April 2020, where you can quiz her about starting a smallholding. For more information, visit countrylivingfair.com.