FreeTree and The Guild of Jam and Preserve Makers

At Jam Jar Shop we are excited to bring you a brilliant new scheme - FreeTree! Take a look at the page on the website and get applying. We love to think that lots of new fruit trees and bushes will be planted for the future and there will be lots of lovely fruit for jams and chutneys, of course. Whether you are an allotment association, a playschool or school, a care home or just an individual you can apply to receive a fruit tree of your choice - absolutely FREE. Write us a letter, send us an email, a picture of where the tree will be going - tell us why you need it. We will award a tree every week but the trees will be dispatched at the appropriate time for planting, not actually every week. Let's hear from you.

The other project we would like to bring to your attention is The Guild of Jam and Preserve Makers. Newly launched, you can email for a membership pack and join in with the jam making community. From individual home producers through artisans to the industry, membership is open to all. Membership also incorporates SwapCrop a community based scheme to match folks that have spare fruit or vegetable crops with those willing - or even desperate - to make them into jams and preserves, to be shared with the cropper of course! Make new friends, learn new skills, make the most of nature's harvest. Visit http://www.jamguild.com/ for all information. We will be adding lots of items over the next few weeks so visit often.

Italian Bottles

We have lots of lovely new Italian bottles in stock - already for the Elderflower season which will be here before we know it! The bottles are reasonably priced, stylish and in a variety of sizes with some beautiful shapes. There are two sizes of oil bottle in both green glass and clear and they come with a choice of cap - gold or black with an intergral plastic pourer. The sweetest little bottle with a swing top stopper is just 40ml and ideal to use as a wedding favour. Take a look - we'll be having some lovely new elderflower labels as well shortly.

Our Country Living Award

Here's the proof! We had such a good time at the show - all of the people from the event organisers and from Country Living Magazine made it as good as it can be. It's always hard work, you always end up exhausted but if the hassle is minimised it makes all the difference. Things like being able to have a freshly cooked breakfast with wholesome ingredients before you start really made a difference. Hats off to all of the cheerful staff at The Good Eating Company in the venue. Even the taxi drivers were cheerful!

We are so pleased to have won this award on our first visit and it really gives our staff a boost who worked especially hard to keep everything going back at base while some of us were away. We've shared the champagne with them this morning so if something is missing from your order today you'll know why.

It was lovely to meet lots of our customers face to face and we have plenty of feedback for next year, and for the things you are looking for, so we'll get to work on that.

We have a couple of great schemes coming up which we'll do separate entries on once we've caught up with the post and the messages.

Great News!!!!

We have been awarded the Best New Product for our stand at The Country Living Fair at the Design Centre, Islington and we are sooooooooo pleased! Totally unexpected - the show is on until Sunday and is a great day out - why not come along and see us? Now, where are those champagne glasses?

Thank you Country Living

YouTube Slideshow - Making Lemon Curd

Just completed the next YouTube presentation on making fresh Lemon Curd - just right for Easter - give it a go!

Easter newsletter and offers

Great new email newsletter out today - get here http://www.jjsurl.com/?15 You can subscribe to receive the newsletter from the website - no need to buy. There are some fantastic offers for Easter and some great ideas for weddings - so if you are a bride-to-be or know someone who is, take a look.

Guess what I saw today?

We've been to some meetings today (groan) but on the way back stopped at a farm shop we know of (hurrah) and they had some very young, very pale pink rhubarb - the first I've seen so
far. It will start to come in now more and more and I'm hoping to be able to use some for a new Jam Jar Shop video epic - making Rhubarb and Ginger Chutney. Hopefully May and I will be able to take the photos this week and I can get it onto YouTube so you can make some too. It's really exciting because it is the first home-grown crop of the year - next will be gooseberries married with the fantastic hedgerow Elderflowers and then, well it will all kick off early Summer.

Here we go!