Preserving what we produce

I was gifted 4 bags of organic windfalls lat night, I cleaned up many, cut out much and have now got 20 small pots of frozen puree, perfect for winter. I preserve my own grown apples by storing in my wooden apple store, not yet this year as it is year one, will start next year. Prep will start this winter by using grease bands to try and prevent codling moth, every stake and trunk and keeping any vegetation cut back so it does not touch the trees. Thinning also helps a lot especially apples that are touching, earwigs do a lot of damage and hide in these dark spaces. All the apples that I put into my wooden store are hand plucked and get picked over and handled very carefully. They can and do last to feb/march. The many slatted drawers were full with just 3 M26 trees

I could have preserved more but ran out of enthusiasm, I would have bottled some puree but instead, the hotbins are well fed. He will be bringing plums soon, I will be bottling some. One of my best bottling projects in the past, was bottled plum puree, it was gorgeous over winter

I used to do rumtopf to preserve berries but gave that large pot away. It needs lots of strong alcohol

I am going to rescue more outdoor tomatoes today, this is blight weather, humid and warm. The ones I have wrapped indoors are ripening nicely and I am feasting on lush red tomatoes. Latest method was a large egg box filled with egg sized tomatoes, lid on and in the kitchen, ripening is happening and these are destined to freeze whole

The green beans are only producing enough for daily use now, which suits me as I have ample stored in the freezer for winter, no blanching btw. There are flower buds, and the plants look healthy, I expect beans for quite a while yet

We have a tree bowed down with damsons this year. As I am a reversed diabetic, I don’t want to make loads of jam. Just some for DH and DD. Any ideas with what to do with the remainder? Can you make chutney?

Yes, I store apples too. We have a dark shed we use for potatoes and apples go in there too.

I used to freeze tomatoes but now bottle them. Mostly roast first, with a little olive oil and salt, then put through sieve (I have an old Mouli one- turn handle to push through). I put the hot purée into jars - any type with good seal, such as old mayonnaise jars, but lids left loose. I then use a pressure cooker- about 5 minutes at pressure, and screw lids on tightly as soon as pressure drops. As jar cools, the lid will click as vacuum forms and dimple in middle is sucked down. I can keep these for more than a year and still perfect.

I think you can preserve tomatoes like this by immersing jars in boiling water for about 20 min, if no pressure cooker. No risk of botulism from tomatoes as too acidic.

I forgot the apples and tomatoes, I think I will make crabapple and blackcurrant jelly, should be nice in sauces and with meals.

Farmor, I presume you also store your apples. I have a tall beech apple store with lots of slatted drawers. I used it when I had the allotment but I was really fussy about how I picked my fruit and only put perfect fruits in. They on the whole lasted until february. I think I have quite a few codling holes this year, being the first year here I never bothered with greasebands but I will next year and I took a lot of apples off

Tomatoes, I want to freeze as much as possible, just whole in bags, they last a year. I`ll have to eat faster to make freezer space

I’m picking and freezing Japanese wineberries at the moment- lots of small fruit on very thorny canes! I’ll mix them with other fruit and make “summer jelly”. Like bramble jelly, but gooseberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, apples etc. Popular with those who don’t like seeds.

We’ve lots of apples so some years ago I got a press and started making cider. However, none of the family is very keen on it so this year I’ll stick to juice. I’ll add some of my frozen fruit with apples to make combinations- eg apple and raspberry. I tried pasteurising juice in bottles so I could preserve, but it was a bit “hit and miss” - some fermented and nearly exploded?. Now I just freeze- re-using plastic bottles and milk cartons.

Last year I got a great hint for making it easier to press juice from apples- freeze them first! food52.com/blog/20841-easy-way-to-juice-apples
video.cookist.com/video/an/WhP2zuSwNYC8qdHZ

How is the harvesting going?

I have enough green beans in the freezer for winter also frozen potatoes, blueberries are finished apart from stragglers, maybe 6-7kg in the freezer. I have frozen parsley, have a crock full of nice shallots. Picked the first years blackcurrants and frozen them, bottled gooseberries and rhubarb

Strawberries are developing very fast now, I made small pots of rhubarb and strawberry compote to freeze. Cannot pick any more rhubarb as they are new plants. Strawberries next, I`ll mush and freeze in small pots, what I cannot eat. I made and froze some small tubs of beetroot juice

I am almost done this year, very pleasantly surprised at how productive my first year new garden has been. I am eating fresh green beans, small courgettes, lettuce, cucs and radishes. For winter freshness I have purple sprouting and various hardy cabbages and kale

I think that is it for my preserving this year

phacelia is growing fine, lucky to have had a bit of rain. I am going to hoe it down tomorrow and quickly turn the soil over. My leeks are on their way

Its a good catch crop, I am going to sprinkle some seeds along the edge of a trug tomorrow, there is an empty space and I don`t need more lettuce or radish, its quite shallow along the edge

I used to have an excalibur dehydrator but tbh never liked dried veg. Now I have courgettes and can only eat so many small ones, either in salad or steamed. I have made courgette and tarragon soup, courgettes, tarragon (dried is all I have ) , stock and butter. It smells divine, this is to eat today and tomorrow but I think I will make this with much less water ie more concentrated, it will be very suitable to freeze

Strawberries are going to be very productive in their first season, I am cutting runners off and will be transplanting fenella and alice to 2 trugs for next year. Much more productive and easier than veggies, of which I think I am producing too much. I didn`t think much of the mange tout, was nice but only went on producing for a few weeks. Borlotti were fine as beans in soup. The next lot will be picked soon and beans also eaten fresh. Value for area? not much

My charlottes, the few I left in a crock, are not going to last so they are being steamed today, for the fridge. They were good stored in the ground but I want a quick rotation with phacelia and then shallots and garlic

I want to but some leek plants today, I have a space, after ferrari in a half barrel (plastic)

Green beans, large crop frozen yesterday, will be excellent for winter. More today, I will reach a point when I have frozen enough and cannot eat more so then I will return beans to the earth via compost

I have small pots ready for strawberries, will mush and freeze, a few in a pot. Blueberries are still producing and I am still looking after the 6 plants. As soon as I cut down on water, the leaves will go red and they will go into dormancy quite early

re worms, I gathered a few worms from my allotment and they moved house to here (grin)

It was very compacted builders rubble, no air and no worms. I put very many bags of peat based composts on it, pure peat and horse manure compost, peat is produced locally to here. I spent very many hours digging rocks out of where I would be putting apple trees and fruit bushes, I had to use a gorilla bar and had permanent aching arms. I did as much as I could by autumn and then left the worms to do the rest

I put bocking 14 comfrey in, having dug out bits of root from my allotment. I bought 1 mini hotbin because good compost is usually all I ever use, I filled it and now have 3, each being very hot and making compost very quickly. I use green manure in raised beds when I can, phacelia, quick growing and easy to cut and turn over, then I cover with weed fabric and the worms start work. That is basically how I am making my soil nice

I encourage insects and have hundreds of them bumble bees, bees, hover flies etc I also have some tinkling water via a small solar panel and pagoda.

It is only 15 months since I started and it looks as though it has been here forever. It was worth the aching bones.

I am still preserving green beans and have 8 meals worth in the freezer. I am going to weigh my frozen blueberries at the end. I am guessing at minimum 6kg. £20 a kg for organic blueberries, wow what a good value crop

Craftyone,. What did you do to improve the soil?

Someone mentioned beetroot - one of our favourites and so easy to grow. Few pests etc. We just left them in the soil until we were ready to eat them, though baby beets are the sweetest.
The problems we had with pests! Potatoes were worst, we even had colorado beetle 2 years running. Then wire worm. Even a few of these:
www.wildlifeinsight.com/british-moths/deaths-head-hawkmoth-and-caterpillar-acherontia-atropos/

I’ve just seen the heading to this thread. Mine is more of eating what I produce!!

Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines along with stuff like basil and French beans we have been growing in the greenhouse always. Lettuce is grown outside in containers along with spring onions as the greenhouse is too hot for them, although winter saladings do well. They are all especially good this year. We also grow container courgettes, and potatoes.

Another South Wales girl here! My DH, a keen gardener, has had a problem with slugs and snails this year. He gets up in the middle of the night to catch them in a jar and then deposits them in the lane near us! But having said this we still have had a fantastic produce this year. I think all that sunshine and now the rain has brought everything on. My bedding plants are great too.

We very very reluctantly had to give up our allotment - and after a few years of veg free existence are investing in veg trugs. We will never recruit back the outlay of course but we are telling ourselves that it is a hobby, -which it is.?

So have begun with a herb trug. Now newly planted and looking fresh and new. All the usual, rosemary, basil, thyme, parsley, mint, etc

We have erected a small wall hugger trug Now seeded with French Beans, beetroot, carrots and lettuce seedlings.

We have a large wall hugger arriving and this will be in a shadier bit of the garden so that needs planting with stuff that doesn’t mind shade. An autumn planting of peas will be one thing, coriander next summer, carrots and beetroot as well.

Then we have 2 large trugs planned after my picking garden has completed its season. which will go in the sunniest part and we hope they will be erected and fillEd with a mixture of JI3 and multipurpose. There will be autumn onion sets, garlic, and broad beans, plus spring cabbage.

The whole lot give us approx 40 sq. foot and we are going to follow the square foot method of gardening. It wont if course give us sufficient to store except perhaps onions but it is a form of intensive growing replenishing each square foot with rich nutrient compost as it is emptied of crop. I shall rotate in the usual way but have to have a written plan with all these little square feet!

Jermor shallots, got that wrong

I make cool lovely juices from cucumbers, I have a slow vertical juicer, that is why I planted 2 marketmores. I skin them first. You can freeze these juices. I add a couple of other things to the juicer, depends what I have spare

I picked 3 small courgettes this morning,now ready in my soup maker for later, as I have to be out today. I haven`t left any to get big, so far

Shallots are germimor, I saved 8 from my allotment pickings and now have at least 80. I only ever bought one pack, 11 years ago. I intend to plant another 8 this year and have offered some to a neighbour. They dried nicely and I bought another crock, having foolishly got rid of my other one, what you do when in brain fog for moving house. The destined bediss the charlotte bed, I got all of those out and frozen. I then put phacelia in, sprinkled compost on top and was thankful for the rain. They are up and growing. I want to get them dug in asap

Some tomatoes are changing colour to the yellow stage before red. I am freezing beans now, unblanched, having done a taste test. They are much nicer than blanched. There are masses of flowers and young beans so next job is to make yet more freezer space. The blueberries are going to take up a whole drawer, not at all finished yet and 4.5 kg are picked. They are the easiest fruits ever. No bugs, pick before completely ripe to win the bird race. Good watering and some feeding is essential. I took special care this year and there is a massive growth of glossy leaves and branches. I estimate an even bigger crop next year. They have responded so well to tlc, yet survived some neglect in the past and also moving in a van. I gave a dusting of suphur powder early on because I had to use tap water for a short while, the water butts were empty. 660 litres

Too many brassicas have been a mistake for me, I don`t any longer intend to make sauerkraut this year. They are bursting out of their netted bed. The 2 purple sprouting plants in the soil are being visited daily by cabbage whites and I have squished endless clusters of yellow eggs, with gloves on. Next year I am growing these under net,no preserving required, they are good picking over winter (leaves) and later (shoots). Maybe a few minicole in a trug next year for july/august. I cannot see me finding another way to preserve my cabbages, except in soups. The 2 red drumheads are so tight that I am happy not looking for eggs on these, 2 is 1 too many for me. Yet again Delia red cabbage here I come

Barmeyoldbat, it could be that they are not sprouts, they sound like purple sprouting. I used to get tiny sprouts by now, you don`t want them too soon ayway so keep fingers crossed. They like very firm soil, well trodden. Not to forget that you can eat any brassica leaves, shredded like cabbage.

I make cucumber soup and freeze it, but it’s to have hot in the winter, not a cold soup.

It’s a Delia recipe, mine comes out not too thick, DH likes it in a flask as it’s thinner than some of my home made soup.

We haven't got any peas or beans yet but they are flowering.
I think that cold spell slowed everything up.

We've had several courgettes. The cucumbers are in the greenhouse, we could have a glut of them and will be giving them away.

Any ideas what to do with cucumbers apart from salads, with onions in vinegar or cold soup?

Good heavens, I'm weeks behind you lot! All I've got is flowers of peas, beans and courgettes. Tomatoes are just beginning to set fruit...

But I think that the NE must be one of the coolest areas in England.

I think that's right about the sprouts, I'm no expert! However, we did grow some last year. They were very small but very nice. If I grew them again I'd probably give them a dollop of manure.

I've found out the culprit which is is eating the newly planted sprouting broccoli. Today I saw the squirrel trying to get to them, we have put wire mesh over them until they're bigger..

Thanks for the info about the sprouts, never grown them before, in fact this is my first with a veg garden for I don't how long. The sprouts are for our Christmas dinner. I also made marrow rum years ago, hung the marrow in a string plant holder and hung it from the ceiling. It worked, I also use to make a lot of home made wine and friends would come round and we play guess what you are drinking. My blackberry wine was like alcoholic blackcurrant juice. It just went down a treat but your legs would give way when you stood up. Great fun.

Thanks, merlot

We will just have to watch out!

I think our plums will be ready in about three weeks. We don't worry about wasps. You just have to be careful when picking.