Monday, 6 September 2010

Preserving

The allotment has been very neglected lately. It was all I could manage just to get there and keep harvesting things. However I have managed to do a bit of preserving and storing. I have been rather confined to the house because the children are still on holiday and we also have builders in, but this is what I have managed to do:


The onions are hanging inside the legs of tights, strung up in the shed. When I want some I just cut below a knot and out they come. It as a bit less fiddly that making strings, besides, they hardly had any stalks left for tieing to the string.

The sum total of my loganberry, blackcurrant and blueberry crops was made into just three jars of jam! It hasn't been a very good year for my fruit. I went out blackberrying, but somebody had beaten me to it and all the good ones had gone. But there were masses of elderberries, so I have made elderberry jelly in quantity. It does contain a couple of handfuls of blackberries, some spice and cinnamon, and the juice of two lemons and pectin sugar, as it seems elderberries are pretty low in pectin. It has set well and is surprisingly tasty.


Finally I have blanched and frozen several bagfuls of runner beans.

This week I am back to work and it's forecast to rain all week, but maybe the weekend will be a good opportunity to catch up a bit at the allotment.

3 comments:

Jo said...

It's a good idea to store your onions this way, far less fiddly than plaiting them. I lost my blueberries to frost this year, I was so looking forward to them too.

Damo said...

Your onions look great. Not sure how much jam I'd get from my 6 blueberries!

Geoff Wakeling said...

I love the tights idea for Onions! I've never seen that before, must try that with my harvest :)