From orange deliveries in January to mincemeat- making in December, a new children’s book takes readers through a year in the life of “Granny Marmalade and Uncle Tractor” aka Ouse Valley Foods founder and “chief pot-stirrer” Julian Warrender and her farmer son Jamie.

The pair acquired their new nicknames with the arrival of Jasper, Warrender’s first grandson by her other son Joseph. Now three, he has always enjoyed visiting his grandmother in her farmhouse “jam factory” in Uckfield, East Sussex, where she makes the award-winning jams, chutneys and, of course marmalades which are sold all over the county.

Charmingly illustrated by Warrender’s old friend Gavin Rowe, who also created Ouse Valley’s heron logo, Granny Marmalade And Uncle Tractor plots the changing seasons on the farm as experienced by Warrender, Jamie and Jasper.

September is the time for foraging rosehips, elderberries and crab apples, when “inkyblack”

rooks fly overhead and wheelbarrows full of beetroots and swedes arrive at the kitchen door to be turned into treats for the Harvest Festival.

Next month, Granny Marmalade can be found apple-picking – she uses nearly 5,000 kilos a year in her kitchen – and making sloe gin in anticipation of New Year’s Eve.

Dotted with seasonal recipes for toffee apples, pesto, sausage rolls and bird feeders and filled with delicious descriptions both of produce and landscapes, the book offers an appealing glimpse into an old-fashioned way of life.

Warrender grew up “a privileged savage” on a farm in Somerset where she and her siblings were expected to muck in with the day-to-day work.

Governess-educated and nearly entirely self-sufficient, the children were immersed in the demands and delights of the changing seasons, a tradition she has continued throughout her adult life.

Her aim in writing her first book was to illustrate the “symbiotic relationship” between food, cooking and farming that she is now thrilled to be able to introduce to her grandson.

She writes of July evenings spent camping with him in a tepee in the garden, listening out for the nocturnal “scuffle and snuffle” of badgers, and getting up early on October mornings to take Jasper out to gather the mushrooms that grow in a far corner of the orchard.

Warrender wanted to capture all the things she loves about her life – the joy of growing fruit and vegetables, the fun of foraging, the sticky pleasure of stirring vats of “bubbling, burping” marmalade and yes, climbing trees in her orchard.

“I’m absolutely disgraceful really”, she laughs. “But I think some of us have more feral roots than others and the countryside has always been such a big part of who I am.”

It’s an attitude that has played a large part in the success of Ouse Valley Foods, which she founded nearly ten years ago. Warrender has always been passionate about seasonality and honesty and the company prides itself on only using fresh ingredients, most of them from local growers.

The sense of adventure evident in this tree-climbing granny comes into play in unusual flavour combinations such as Clementine and red chilli chutney.

“I’ve always loved tinkering and experimenting and that really suits this company. But most of all, I’m just frightfully greedy...”

* Granny Marmalade And Uncle Tractor is out now (Hare & Heron Press, £9).

* Julian Warrender will be running marmalade-making classes for children aged four to nine tomorrow (September 29) at Lewes Community Kitchen as part of Lewes October Feast.

Visit www.hareandheron press.com/grannymarmalade.

*For more on Ouse Valley Foods visit www.ousevalleyfoods.com