Getting ready for Garlic and Kay Baxter

This week in the Backyard Vegetable Patch. 

It’s been a mixed bag for the whole country weather wise so far this season.  At the moment it is still warm and very very wet so the grass is still growing but the ground is  boggy. Take note of what is happening in your garden each month – as I have mentioned before it is really useful to have a 5 year diary to make notes in. This is a good way to get to know your garden and the microclimate you live in.

At the moment I still have sweet pea plants looking very lush and healthy on the fence.  These are ones that flowered late summer and into autumn but I am sure they should be well dried off by now.  Just watching them to see what is going to happen but then they will be a really useful addition to the compost. 

Corn stalks have well and truly dried off though. Yesterday I picked all the old left-over corn cobs and will store them on netting racks over winter to provide a bit of extra feed and entertainment for the hens.  I then pulled up the stalks and chopped into pieces with a sharp spade.  Dug a trench where they had been planted and put the old stalks on the bottom along with other suitable material for composting, a bit of blood and bone and sprinkle of lime. The old bean stalks that I had growing up in Indian style went in (after I had taken off the dried ones saved for seed). This is a good way to get the carbon back into the soil and is recommended by the late Prof Walker and also Kay Baxter of the Koanga Institute fame.  I have also planted a couple of rows of broad beans in the same bed – mostly as a green crop over winter but also to eat as a spring vegetable. 

When I swap to Year 2 of my Crop Rotation Garden Plan in spring, this will be the bed that I will next grow green leafy crops such as brassicas, silverbeet, spinach and salad vegetables. So that is what we are preparing for. Following this plan, you will actually have a bit of a cross over – autumn sown or planted brassicas will come to maturity in spring in Bed 4 (bottom left hand bed) and then we will plant new season’s ones in Bed 1. Autumn sown broad beans will still be in Bed 1 but we will plant new season’s ones in bed 2.  Hope this doesn’t sound confusing – it helps to have your copy of the poster handy. 

We are harvesting leeks, celery, carrots, beetroot, pumpkins, rhubarb(!), silverbeet, parsley, red cabbage.  Just the ones I can think of. Oh – and potatoes. I lost the name of the ones we are eating now – they are red skinned with white flesh and just delicious.  We have been treating them like a new potato and with Mothers Day just gone, enjoyed them for an outdoor lunch with a winter salad made of red cabbage, grated beetroot, grated carrot, celery, chopped apple and walnuts from out orchard. Followed by rhubarb pie made with my favourite short pastry (see recipe from my previous post)

Getting Ready to Grow Garlic. 

Next month will be the traditional time to plant garlic so now is the time to prepare the ground. I think I will plant mine in the Year 2 cycle of my plan though.  I could have gone either way but think that as most of the growing season will be in Year 2 and those beds are clear of the tomatoes etc from the previous Year 1 cycle, it makes sense to plant there. So that will be Bed 3 and I will grow them in the raised perimeter bed. Actually, as my garden is so new, this bed is not  raised yet – that will have to wait until we are living there – but I will build it up about the ground. I lost potatoes with the wet soil this year so don’t want to take chances with my precious garlic.  You will need well drained fertile soil. Dig over ground removing all weeds and adding compost, blood and bone and a bit of lime.  Leave for a couple of weeks and then plant your garlic. 

 Koanga Institute Fundraiser. 

Speaking of Kay Baxter, she is currently touring the country on a speaking mission to raise funds to purchase the block where they are doing a vital job of saving heritage plants and seeds. The block was leased and is now going on the market so Kay is urgently trying to raise funds to purchase this block.  Kay is one of the pioneers of saving heirloom plants and seeds in NZ and it is really important that we support this work.  To find out more go to  HYPERLINK "http://www.koanga.ort.nz/tour" www.koanga.ort.nz/tour or email  HYPERLINK "mailto:rachel@koanga.org.nz" rachel@koanga.org.nz. 

Here are some South Island Meeting dates. 

Christchurch June 3. 

Dunedin June 5. 

Preserving Black Boy Peaches

Preserving BlackBoy Peaches

This year I have been bottling fruit.  It took me many years before I got into it as I remember hot humid Februaries in North Auckland with Mum and Grandma slaving over a hot preserving pan getting the fruit all done for the winter. It seemed like an awful lot of hot sticky work. Of course I was happy enough to eat the fruits of their labour – we grew up with pudding every night – often preserved fruit and whipped cream.  No fatties then!

Anyway – as we are now looking at ways to preserve our crops without freezing  I have got back into the bottling. The peach I love to preserve is the wonderful Black Boy Peach.  The history of this gorgeous fruit is a bit shrouded – it is prevalent in NZ but probably has other names elsewhere so difficult to track. My mother tells me that is was looked down on a bit in her day – not as posh as golden queens or other peaches. Perhaps its breeding was a bit suspect (crossed with a plum?) or its colouring was considered a tiny bit crass. However it is now coming into its own and here’s a few of the reasons why.

1. It is gorgeous. Cut in half and the colours are very beautiful.

2. It is freestone – the stones come away from the fruit 
3. You don’t need to peel it so much less fuss than some other peaches.
4. It tastes really good – enough tartness to give it a black doris plum flavour.
5. Looks gorgeous in the bottle.
6. The tree itself will grow true from seed here in NZ.
7. It doesn’t mind a cooler climate.
8. The tree is healthy and vigorous and doesn’t seem to be bothered too much with disease.

Our trees have been grown from peach stones and do very well.  One of the problems we do have is that they can fruit so prolifically that the tree can collapse under the weight of the fruit. It might need a little propping up towards the end of harvest and a little judicious thinning earlier on in the season may be in order.  As it does grow true from seed it’s a good one to plant in your hedgerow as extra food for yourself and others. We just plant the stones in pots of potting mixture.

Bottling.

Preserving by bottling is coming back into fashion like a lot of the so-called Nana arts. You can now get jars from big stores such as Bunnings and Mitre10. I have a mixed collection but my favourites are the old heavy Agee jars we got from a second-hand shop in Invercargill. The good thing about bottling is that you recycle your jars – no use once then throw away, so a good option for those of us mindful of waste. You can still buy Agee jars, the seals and the rings at the grocery store but of course you can get them from second hand shops, recycling stores and people moving house who don’t need them anymore. It the rings are rusty or the seals have been used then buy some more – you don’t want any health risks when it comes to feeding your family.

There are a number of methods of preserving fruit and any number of books out there so choose your favourite. I use the Open pan overflow method from the good old Edmonds Cookbook. (I still have my sauce and chocolate cake encrusted copy from the 80s.)

Sterilise your equipment. 
Put your clean washed preserving jars into the oven and turn up to 110 Celsius. When the light goes out and the temperature is reached turn the oven off and leave the jars in the oven. Put the seals and rings into a covered saucepan on an element and bring to boil to ensure they are sterilized. You can rinse out a clean teatowel in boiling water too to wipe around the lids of jars.

Prepare the bench.
Cover the bench beside the stove with newspaper and put a couple of wooden boards out ready for the hot jars. I use a big old enamel pie dish to catch the overflow of fruit.

Cooking the fruit. 

Using your biggest preserving pan, make up a syrup. You can choose what strength of syrup to use and I tend to make up a medium one which is 1 cup sugar to 2 cups water. A heavy syrup is 1:1cup and a light is 1:3. Don’t be afraid of sugar in this instance – it is a preserver. I am more wary of the false food modified corn syrup-type sugars you find in most commercial products than worry about proper cane based sugar used to preserve my own home grown fruit for the family. (If you want to know more read Michael Pollan’s  The Omnivore’s Dilemma – the first half on the corn industry in the USA is an eye-opener)
Fill the pan just over half full with the water and sugar and bring to the boil so the sugar dissolves.
Wash the fruit and cut in half with a good short bladed vegetable knife. The stones should come out freely.  When you have enough for a pan full, tip them all very carefully in at once.  You will have to bring back up to a boil and top up syrup if necessary to cover the fruit. This way they will all cook evenly.  I don’t like to overcook as I don’t want my fruit to break up. It’s sort of poaching them. About 10 mins. Poke a large piece of fruit to see if tender.

Filling the jars. 
Get some jars out and put on the wooden board. Using a clean teatowel put a jar into the overflow dish and pack the cooked fruit into the jar.  Once they are nearly full, top up with the hot syrup.  Then slide over one of the seals, wipe with cloth and then screw the band on tightly. Move that jar to the wooden board and leave to cool. Carry on with the other jars. It’s handy to have some half size jars available too as you never know how many you will need.
Cook the next batch of fruit and repeat until all finished.
The next day check that the seals have taken, wash the jars and shelve for winter eating.