The Wet Web
WHILE lots of us might run our eye along towpath hedges with the hope of a bit of fruit foraging this time of year, Helen and Andy Tidy keep a sharp lookout for more professional reasons.
Wild Side Handmade Preserves, currently celebrating its 10th year of production, was set up in 2012 when Helen’s enthusiasm for jam- making made her decide to do something about the bounty available as she and Andy passed by laden bushes in nb Wand’ring Bark.
To many, they’re better known as The Jam Butty, after the butty was added to store equipment and stock for the half of the year they spend continuous cruising. It couldn’t really have been named anything else. “And jam storage is below the waterline, so it keeps nice and cool,” said Helen.
Different parts of the country yield different harvests. Plums are most easily found in the Vale of Evesham, which used to have a large jam-making industry of its own. “Lots of lockside cottages had an orchard,” she added, “so they probably spread from there.”
Everywhere, of course, you find brambles. “This year has been a very good year for blackberries and there are always millions of crab apples along the towpath,” said Helen, who uses them, not only in preserves, but to make her own stock of pectin for the fruit that doesn’t set so easily.
But harvest time isn’t restricted to the summer months. In spring, wild garlic crops up. This goes into wild garlic and carrot chutney, as well as wild garlic vinegar. “I’m really pleased with the wild garlic products,” said Helen. “I’ve moved away from nettles and dandelions, because they weren’t so popular and they took a lot of time, but wild garlic is a very popular ingredient with customers.”
With production of 4-5000 jars a year, much of Helen’s processing and potting up – and Andy’s, now that he has been taught to make jam – takes place on land, once they go home in autumn. There’s plenty of to-ing and fro-ing in summer, though, as they process perishable fruit and stock the home freezers, ready for the autumn activity.
From October to March, Helen and Andy also give talks.
“We can really push canals as a lifestyle and for well-being. A lot of people are aware of canals, particularly since lockdown.”
As for every small business, Covid provided its own challenges. “It was the first year ever we were incredibly organised,” said Helen ruefully. “We’d made everything apart from wild garlic as that was just popping up.” The result was that they gave a lot of jars away: “To foodbanks, to deliveries that came to the house.” When it was allowed, they began to make their own deliveries within a five-mile radius of their home in Aldridge,
West Midlands – something they still offer in winter.
Although Covid meant they had to rethink the way things were presented, it’s had a surprising result. “We would have a table full of jars, all with tasters,” explained Helen. “We stopped tasters completely.” Now, they display just one example of each product line and have menu boards presenting graphic descriptions of what’s on offer.
And, unexpectedly, sales have gone up. “There were crowds around the taster table and we think that people who would have bought couldn’t get to the front,” said Helen, who now keeps samples under the table for people who need to know how something tastes.
Now we’re into October, their cruising season is over and, once all the jam and chutney have been made from this summer’s produce, Helen – and possibly Andy – will be full-on with marmalade until spring. Citrus isn’t, of course, something that crops up much in British hedgerows but nearly every creation includes something wild, even if it’s just a good glug of home-made medlar vodka.
Keep an eye on The Jam Butty’s website ( www. wildsidepreserves. co. uk) for news of where Helen and Andy will be selling preserves of this season’s harvest when cruising begins again next spring.