Rows of preserve jars on glass shelves with cloth-covered lids
Eleven runs on the shelf · counts correct to Friday 09:00

The shelf

Everything here is finite. The second number is how many came out of the pan; the first is how many are left. When it reaches nought the row stays up, struck through, until the fruit comes round again.

Batch 0421
28 Sep
84 jars
44 left
Market
The Saturday shelf, three rows deep, before the stall opens.

Read the label and you have read the whole business

Every jar carries the same five fields in the same order, hand-set and letterpressed four hundred at a time by a printer in Beaminster. Nothing else goes on the front. If you want the ingredients they are on the back, and if you want the pH we will tell you on the phone.

Line one
The fruit, named by variety, not by colour
Line two
The batch number — ours since 2011, never reused
Line three
The day it went in the pan, in Roman months
Line four
Net weight, and this jar's place in the run
Oathill Preserving Co.Damson & SloeShropshire Prune · Pennfield orchard
Batch0412Made14 · IXNet227 gJar66 of 96
Bridport · Dorset · Keep cool, eat within four weeks of opening
The label, set by hand. One of four hundred from the September printing.

Jams, jellies and cheeses

Five runs open. Prices include VAT; postage is £5.80 for up to six jars.
041231 of 96 left
Damsons on the branch

Damson & sloe

Shropshire Prune damsons from Pennfield with a handful of sloes off the lane hedge, which is what makes it bite. Stones out by hand over two evenings.

Damsons at Pennfield, two days before picking.
£7.50227 g
Reserve a jar →
041912 of 60 left
Red apples still on the tree in sunlight

Discovery apple jelly

Discovery is a poor keeper and a fine jelly. Dripped overnight through a flour sack, never squeezed, which is why it is clear and why there is so little of it.

Discovery apples still on the tree, top row.
£8.00227 g
Reserve a jar →
042019 of 48 left
Small dark plums hanging on a tree

Marjorie's Seedling plum

Picked the week they go soft, which is a four-day window and the reason this run is never the same size twice. Loose set, meant for a spoon rather than toast.

Marjorie's Seedling, the week they go soft.
£6.00227 g
Reserve a jar →
042144 of 84 left
Apples in a pale wooden tray

Windfall apple butter

Six hours with the lid off and nothing in it but windfalls, cider and a little salt. The cheapest thing we make and the one the kitchen eats.

A tray of Discovery in from the orchard.
£6.50227 g
Reserve a jar →
04096 of 40 left
Two hands full of redcurrants above a tray

Redcurrant jelly

Fourteen kilos of currants makes forty jars and that is the whole year. Stripped off the strigs with a fork by three people in one afternoon.

Two handfuls out of a 14 kg pick.
£8.50170 g
Reserve a jar →
A close crop of pale pink rhubarb stalks
PicklesRhubarb washed, before it is cut to 2 cm.

Pickles, ferments and the odd run

Six open. Three of these are made once a year and two of them we will probably stop making.

Jars of dilled beans and cucumbers on a wire rack

Dilled beans

Dilled beans racked after the brine. Batch 0391.
039102 Aug0 / 120
Sold out · back next August
A pile of cut red rhubarb stalks with their leaves

Forced rhubarb & bay

Forced rhubarb trimmed for the pan.
041821 Sep12 / 60
£6.50 · 227 g
A hand picking blackberries from a bramble

Hedgerow bramble

Three hours on the lane for 9 kg of brambles.
041609 Sep0 / 72
Sold out · September only
Two pairs of hands sorting bilberries out of leaves

Bilberry & bay vinegar

Sorting bilberries out of the leaf, up on the hill.
040718 Jul9 / 30
£9.00 · 250 ml
Hands stripping redcurrants into an enamel bowl

Redcurrant shrub

Stripping redcurrants at the kitchen table.
041024 Jul14 / 36
£10.00 · 330 ml
A wooden crate of apples standing in a field

Windfall chutney

Windfalls crated at the field gate.
041505 Sep27 / 90
£6.00 · 300 g

Before you order, the five things people ask

Nothing here is a policy. It is what we actually do, written by the people who do it.
Ask us something else →
Shop notes05
Why can I not buy the run I had last year?

Because it is gone. A run is however many jars came out of one pan on one day, and when it is sold we do not make another to match. The 2024 damson was 288 jars across four runs; 2025 was 96 in one, because Pennfield lost most of the crop to a late frost.

How accurate is the count on this page?

It is written up on Friday morning from the yard book, so it is right on Friday and getting less right all week. Market takes the most and we do not count those out until the Monday. If a run is under ten, ring before you drive over.

What does postage cost and when does it go?

£5.80 for up to six jars, £8.40 for up to twelve, free over £70. Everything goes out on Tuesday in straw and a corrugated sleeve. We do not ship outside the UK and we will not post in a frost week.

Can I have a case of one thing?

Up to six of one run, yes. Past that you are taking a tenth of the year from everybody else, so we will say no unless you are a wholesale account and have told us in March. Wholesale orders close Tuesday at 6pm.

What goes wrong, honestly?

Set, mostly. Without added pectin a jelly can come out looser than the one before it even from the same orchard. We will replace a jar that has not set, but we will not pretend it was meant to be a sauce. Four jars of 0391 went to the staff shelf because they had not sealed by Thursday.

A copper vessel standing beside an open fire
Next firing of the copper: 12 October, batch 0422

Put your name against a run

Tell us the batch and we will hold a jar for seven days, or tell us the fruit and we will write to you the week it comes in. No deposit, no list to unsubscribe from.

Write to the kitchen →
Batch 0421
28 Sep
84 jars
44 left
Market
The copper on the range with the fire still in.