A COUPLE of weeks ago I mentioned in this column that I was on the hunt for a tomato chutney recipe so I could enjoy the flavours of our local tomatoes well into winter.

I was delighted when I walked into our barn following the weekend's trade to find that a lovely customer and Oxford Mail reader had dropped off a copy of his mother’s favourite tomato chutney recipe for me to test out.

Since I've been eating more seasonally and growing my own veg I've become more and more interested in preserves, pickles, chutneys and jams, mainly because they're a more ecological and tasty way to enjoy fruit and veg out of season than shipping them across the globe.

And I'm not alone: many of our customers find it hard to resist the selection of homemade, local, jams, marmalades and chutneys we stock at our stops.

I'm particularly partial to blackcurrant jam, thickly spread on a chunk of toasted white sourdough – something that would have been too expensive to do before the emergence of cheap sugar in the 19th century.

Prior to this, sugar was so expensive that jam was only enjoyed as ‘spoon sweets’, served at the end of feasts on single silver spoon.

After meeting our newest supplier, Sab? Jam, I think I may have found a new favourite flavour – pear rosemary and gin.

Sab? – the creator and namesake of the brand – has been hand making jams since 2010.

Starting out in California, she made jams as a way of preserving the bounty of Californian produce at the height of the season.

On moving to Oxford a year ago she stumbled across our veg van and starting planning the creation of a new batch of jams using local, ethical and seasonal produce.

I've been checking her tantalising Instagram account in anticipation waiting for her first UK batch to be ready, last week the wait was over and I wasn’t disappointed.

I'm looking forward to sharing these perfect preserves with our customers including her quince and cardamom and tomato and saffron jams.

As she only creates them in small batches I'm sure they won’t stick around for long!