Quincessential

 Quince jelly and Smyrna quinces

 The Smyrna quince tree on a rainy autumn day

There are two fruit trees which make perfect front garden or street boundary trees because they have raw fruit which is inedible (and hence unlikely to tempt passersby), while also being worthy of pride of place out front because of their beauty. They are the Meyer lemon and the quince. Both trees have scented flowers, and the fruit of the quince tree are also highly perfumed. Meyer lemon trees have glossy green leaves all year, while the leaves of the deciduous quince turn a nice buttery yellow before they drop off in autumn.

I like quince trees purely as ornamental trees so much that I have planted two in the Eco-Garden, one on a lawn as a specimen tree and one as part of my mixed woodland of native and exotic trees which produce sustaining flowers and fruit for bees, butterflies and birds as well as humans. Quince trees are dead easy to grow, as they don't need a lot of water or fertiliser, and the only pest or disease that can be a problem is the horrid pear and cherry slug, a slimy little black critter which munches its way through the soft part of the leaves on pears, cherries and quinces, leaving the rest looking brown and sad (and unable to photosynthesise.) The easiest and cheapest non-toxic way to deal with this slug that I know of is to dust the tree with fine wood ash (save it from winter fires) on a still day, taking care to coat as many of the undersides of the leaves where the slugs lurk as possible. If you do it as soon as you detect slugs on the tree (checking every 2-3 days is advisable) you can get them early and prevent a total leaf massacre.

The quince varieties I have planted are Giant of Gascony (from the south-west of France) and Smyrna (originally from Turkey). Smyrna has a lovely elongated pear shape (but grows at least twice as large as the largest pears). It is also reputed to be the best-keeping variety of quince available in New Zealand. You can store quinces for up to three months in a cool, dry place. Make sure that the fruit is perfectly dry and free from bruises, cuts or any other blemishes that could allow rot to set in, and if possible don't let the fruit touch each other, so that any decay is not passed on from one quince to the next. Don't expect them to be soft and ready to eat raw even after three months sitting in storage. They are the hardest fruit around – you only know they are ripe on the tree when they are fully golden and starting to give off their distinctive scent. (I like to leave a few in a fruit bowl in the kitchen for a month or so, just to scent the room.)

Stored quinces can be used for desserts. They go well with apples in pies or crumbles, or they can be baked or stewed with a little sugar syrup – and/or red wine and cinnamon sticks. They also make delicious jelly, and a fabulous paste that it is the best sweet thing to eat with well-flavoured white cheeses that I know of. The paste is rather laborious to make, involving much boiling down of quince pulp and sugar, stirring all the while, so it only gets made occasionally at our place. The jelly is much easier to make, as follows:

Quince Jelly

Wash the quinces, cut them in small pieces, put them in a pot with just enough water to cover, and simmer them for 30 minutes or so, to extract all the flavour and pectin.

Drain the liquid in a jelly bag until it has all dripped through into a bowl.

Measure the quince liquid, and for every pint of juice weigh out a pound of white sugar.

(Metricise this if you will – it is the way I learned to make jelly and 0.5682613 litres of juice to 0.4535924 kilograms of sugar just doesn't cut it for me.)

Put the quince liquid and sugar in a large pot or preserving pan, and bring it to the boil, stirring well to dissolve the sugar.

Boil rapidly for 20 or more minutes, until a firm set is achieved.

Bottle the jelly in clean and sterilised hot glass jars.

Quince jelly glows gorgeously.