Preserving what we produce

BBbevan, save me a bottle please!

OK ????

Green bags are good, I had some from lakeland quite some time ago, I just wash in between uses. They help to give me some time when I have a glut in the fridge

I did a bit of garden tidying today, picked some bottom leaves off purple sprouting and watched the snails looking forlorn underneath. The plants look better, airier

I planted 2 x red drumhead cabbages without net, not needed because the heads are so tight, one looke green not red. I have dug it up, composted all the outers and have a beautiful compact green cabbage which will obviously last a long time in the fridge in a green bag. To keep it nice, I will just pick off outer leaves as I want them, rather tham use a knife to cut. It was big enough at 1.2 kg

What next?There are loads more bean flowers on very healthy plants. I am keeping on top of the courgettes and cucs, picked the last howgate wonder apple 2 days ago, it will keep nice for a few weeks, was handled carefully and has no insect marks. It feels like the transition to autumn

Preserving for now will be just veg juicing and making juices to freeze, I have beets, carrots, cucs. Tomatoes are doing lovely in dark paper in the kitchen, I cannot keep up by eating, so just simple freezing whole for the rest of the season

Callistemon I experimented with unblanched runner beans years ago, and now always blanch. I use basket from pressure cooker, or if small amounts, just direct in saucepan and drain.

This year I've been doing more open freezing - on a baking tray, then transfer to large ziplock bag. (Ikea do great bags - some very large strong ones which can be used many time). It's easier to do a small amount every day, than wait to process a lot - the ziplock bag fills up quite quickly. I've open frozen all soft fruit as well as French and runner beans.

Now I've got to find homes for all the jam accumulating in shed! I usually give to parish sale but I don't know if that will happen this year.

With regards to jam - I usually make jellies as well as jam, but find the straining through jelly bag quite tedious. However, some years ago we bought a small apple press, so a few days ago I decided to make "summer jelly" - blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries and apples. After cooking, I put fruit in double net bag and transferred to press. It took a while to press out all the juice, but much less messy than jelly bag. Despite advice that squeezing the bag will lead to a cloudy jelly, mine is pretty clear with a lovely colour and flavour.

unblanched green beans are slightly drier and that is exactly why I prefer them to blanched. All mine are young beans, probably half the mature size, very tender

I am about to let a few of my courgettes grow on to slightly larger size, not big but bigger than finger sized. I feel like making some tubs of ratatouille, which I love on a hm frozen pizza base. I can use my ripened tomatoes, shallots and herbs.

I have been watching Ruth Mott on youtube, everything then was bottled, dried or salted. We have it much easier with a freezer. Mine is packed full, also for the reason that a full freezer will stay frozen for a very long time in a power cut.

Heck my christmas pippin are ready a whole month early, I picked them and they came off easily, I left the 5 smaller ones which were reluctant. The season is definitely changing and the apples are safer off as strong winds etc are due in a few days again. The 10 good blemish-free pippins are in a drawer in my apple store in the garage, the other 10 are in, they have codling moth (emerging) holes and will not store but will make perfectly good (cut up) eaters in couple of weeks

Its always best to go with the flow, calendar dates are no good, its the weather feel that counts

I never thought I would get so many apples, I removed at least half in june. Next year will see a big harvest, grease bands all around to protect the crop. I have done a little summer pruning and will do a little more for winter. My youngest tree, bought as a whip, has two stems and that needs to be cut by half its height, in a place where more stems will grow, so that I end up with several stems and an open shape. That one is a very good keeper with a good protective skin, it is called pigs snout and is a rarity from ian sturrock who grafts unusual or rare apples. One of my best allotment apples was bardsey, massively productive, he grafted it from an apple on bardsey island

I didn`t have room for another apple here, I have three, howgate wonder (cooking and later for eating), christmas pippin and pigs snout. I also got a crab apple called jelly king for pollination and for relatively large attractive crab apples which will hang and feed the birds for a long time