Preserving the Crops

This time of year when I'm busy bottling, jamming, freezing and preserving all our crops in all the various ways we use tends to bring lots of questions on the blog.  Unfortunately, it's obviously also the time of the year that I am at my busiest trying to keep up with the gluts of fruits and veggies and make the best use of them that I can .... so sometimes I feel guilty that I can't get round to answering.

The photo above is this mornings Plum and Apple Jelly cooling on the rack with the labels ready written for when the jars are cold enough to stick them on.

It makes for a glorious coloured jelly.

I was asked the other day how I learnt to do all that I do and it's been mostly from books, and also the selection of Dvds that we have.   We have most of the River Cottage books, usually picked up when we've been there and signed by the authors when we met them, and also the Jamie at Home book that I have, and his accompanying Dvd's are brilliant for what to do with your harvests as they come pouring in all at once.

Every year the books come back out and a quick revision by watching 'Pam the Jam' preserve all her fruits makes for a relaxing and inspiring couple of hours.

I found a couple of brand new boxes of jam jars in the understairs cupboard yesterday, so some of them were quickly pressed into action for this mornings cook up.

The other half were sterilised alongside the ones I used and then lidded and popped back into the box, ready for the next session, when they will obviously be sterilised again as you need the jars hot to pour the hot jam into.

So I'm sorry if I miss the occasional question, but my advice would be to submerge yourself in books, watch programmes and YouTube videos to see techniques in action and well, just enjoy preserving this lovely food that is around now.  Whether you grow it yourself, forage in the countryside or get the fantastic bargains that are to be had at Farmers Markets, shops or supermarkets, this is the time of year of plenty and it's great to make the most of it .... well until you collapse on the sofa absolutely exhausted ... which is exactly what I do most nights these days  :-)

Sue xx 

The Plum Production Line

The other day we set up the plum production line, washing, stoning, skinning and then freezing a huge tray of our homegrown plums.

The Plum tree in Chicken World has done us proud this year, last year was a bit sadder and we lost most of the plums to the wild birds, but this year it would seem they have their minds and their feeding habits elsewhere and our crop is just brilliant, and all for us.  I think it helped a lot grease-banding the tree at the beginning of the year to keep codling moths and other bugs from crawling up the trunk, meaning that so much more of the crop is edible and in very good condition.

Anyway even after making two demi johns worth of plum wine a couple of weekends ago, taking plums to Mum for a couple of weeks and Lovely Hubby eating them whenever he passed the tree we still had this lovely lot to harvest and make good use of.

The rinse, cut in half, de-stone, peel from skin and put onto open freezing tray department.

And in no time at all with two of us working we had four trays ready for the freezer.

We still had enough to fill the jam pan almost to the top with what was left and add a litre of water.  It was all brought to the boil and left simmering for half an hour.

And then transferred to the jelly bags to drip through slowly overnight.

The next day it was all measured out, tipped back into the clean jam pan and I added 450 grams of sugar for each 600mls of plum juice.  It was brought slowly up to temperature so the sugar dissolved completely and then boiled rapidly for 15 minutes until it reached jam temperature and setting point.

Then it was poured, hot jam into hot jars and with lids put on it was left to cool, before labelling the next day.  Nine jars of Plum Jelly which now reside in the home preserves larder cupboard, and one in the fridge ... well you do have to sample the wares don't you ;-)

And in the fridge we have two and a bit jars of Plum Cordial, which is even easier to make.

Just add 350g sugar for every half litre of strained plum juice and heat in a pan until the sugar is dissolved, then bottle into warmed, sterile bottles and allow to cool.  It can be kept in a cool dark place for a couple of months.  If you want it to last longer you can continue and use the water bath method, but I doubt it will need to last that long in our house!!

So up to now we have :

2 demi johns of Plum Wine

10 jars of Plum Jelly

Two bottles of Plum Cordial

... and two 1.5 kgs of prepared Plums

Now we have one last picking of plums to do from the tree before leaving the last few for the wildlife and the chickens who are moving back to their original Chicken World later on tonight.  I'm not sure what they will become but it will add nicely to our little stash and keep us on our journey to fruity self sufficiency.

Sue xx

Where Did August Go?

Okay hands up who stole the end of August ?

Time has whizzed by so quickly and I simply have not been in the office and on the computer to be able to do a blog post since last Monday.  The Bank Holiday here in the UK flew past with jobs being done, things caught up on and bumper harvest being brought in, and prepped for storage as well as consumed by us for tasty meals.  Then suddenly, it was back to work for Lovely Hubby and a change of man about the place with the arrival of my eldest son Simon.  

He mucked in like the trooper he always is, cleaning windows, entertaining pooches and digging up the last of the potatoes, while I tackled some of the weeds that have taken up residence in the veggie patch and faffed about producing jars of Plum jam.  It wasn't all work though, and we spent a couple of evenings watching tele, catching up on news and on the Wednesday both going for lunch in Manchester with Mum.  Me and Mum decided Simon could be an honorary 'lady who lunches' .... although he didn't have to wear a frock ... well that would have been so wrong with me living in jeans virtually 24/7  ;-)

Now it's all swap again with Simon back home to Workington and busy decorating his new flat and Lovely Hubby back home after the shortest working week for a while,  currently moving piles of chippings from the far field to top up the pathways around the raised beds in the Veggie Patch.

Oh, and I took my eyes off the courgettes for a couple of days, and now I have marrows.  EVERYWHERE!!

Sue xx 

Bank Holiday Chicken World Improvements

Chicken World is looking pretty picture perfect at the moment, and when I nip out and take another photo later on today will be looking even neater, because the stones for the pathway have just arrived.

The house has been cleaned out, sprayed and Diatom'd to make sure there are no bugs to annoy the chickens, and it has been filled with fresh bedding ready for their return, with an extra thick layer in the nesting boxes for their egg laying comfort.  The roof was re-creosoted a couple of weeks ago to keep out the rain and preserve the wood, and underneath the house the dust bathing area has been filled with freshly sifted soil ready for them to use to keep their feathers clean.

It's a shame we have to put the chickens back in there, they'll just make it look .... well like Chicken World again  ;-)

Sue xx

Car Booting the Excess

This was our stall about two thirds of the way into the car boot sale today, I was too busy from the minute we drew up to take one before that.   The customers had gone down for a brief spell before a new influx of buyers thronged onto the field.  It was a good day, very hot with no sign of rain and we managed to sell off lots of our surplus 'clutter' and lots that Mum had been sorting out of hers over the last few months.

We started with lots of things in boxes for people to rummage through, as well as the two tables and the clothes rail.  My laundry basket was full of clothes as well as a couple of boxes but by the time this photo was taken we had at last managed to get down to just the rail and a couple of items in the basket, and the table was holding all the remaining books and Dvds displayed flat instead of on end in the boxes.

I've been asked a few times for my tips on selling at car boot sales, so here they are again:

Make sure all your things are clean and working.

Put clear price stickers on things.  

Some people will walk past and be too shy to ask for the price if you don't and you might lose sales.

Be friendly and if people want to haggle allow a little bit of wiggle room in your prices.  For instance if you want to sell something for £5 price it at six, so that when someone asks you if you will sell it at the lower price you can quite happily say yes.

Have a 10p box for bits and pieces, and add to it over the course of the car boot sale as you discover things that you would be happy to let go for this nominal fee.

Make sure all your clothes are clean, hung on hangers facing the same way, and labelled with the size and price ... and if you have the time colour block them.  Hanging similarly coloured clothes together makes them all look neater and more professional.

At the end of the day let people have bargains, if you want to take your things back home you can ... but remember you came out with the idea of selling them and giving yourself space at home, let things go.  We usually take the few more valuable things off the table and then tell everyone that all the clothes on the rail are down to £1 and everything left on the tables is 20p.

This way other more regular car booters will come and buy off you so they have new stock for their next car boot sale.

At the end of the day we came home with £230.19 ... and just one box of good clothes and one box of books and mixed items as a starter for our next sale.

Now it's time to do a bit more sorting out  :-)

Hope your Bank Holiday weekend is going well.

Oh ... and I priced the fireguards at £3 and sold all six of them to one person for £16 ... no doubt they will be being sold on for a higher price somewhere else  :-)

Sue xx

Lovely Peas .....

For the first year in ages our pea plants are doing really well and we are getting to eat lots of their lovely green peas, both snacking while we're working outside and bringing a few in to add to various meals.  We will never have a panful the way we have when we cook with frozen peas (which we still have lurking in the freezer) but they are enough to add their lovely freshness to so many dishes, things like fishcakes and salads.

However, the same can't be said for the Butternut Squashes  ;-)

Sue xx

Bargains ... But Not for Us to Use

I've just realised that I have yet to get around to showing you what I bought from the garden centre when I called in there last week with Mum.  

We had our lunch somewhere else but decided on the spur of the moment to drive to our usual lunch venue Wyevale in Altrincham, as Mum had heard there were final reductions in the end of season sale there.

And as soon as we walked in I spotted these fireguards, reduced from £14.99 to just £1 each.  Brilliant I thought if I buy three of these and sell them at the car boot sale for £3 each that will cover our entrance fee and the fuel we need to get there and so make it a completely cost neutral day ... and still give any purchaser a really good bargain for the coming Winter.

As I picked three up an assistant who was restocking the area must have overheard our conversation and shouted over to us 'there are some more of them if you want more', I said no thanks that I was more than happy with three and I went to pay for them and put them in the car while Mum ordered the coffees.

When I got to the checkout the assistant rang them through the till and then knocked an additional 70% off as that is what they were doing with ALL the sale goods.

So I got the fire guards for just 30p each!!

Needless to say, I went back and got three more after we had finished our coffee  :-)

So now we have six fireguards with a usual selling price total of £89.94, that cost me just £1.80 and that we will hopefully be able to sell for a total of £18.  So that will be our costs for the day covered and a little bit of spending money too.  Result!!

Sue xx