By Ryan
Each Spring, I resolve to process and preserve as much from my own garden as possible.
At home, I have predominantly perennial edibles with lots of herbs. There’s fruit too, which mostly gets eaten by my kids straight from the bush! So, with the herbs I made pesto, we had salads, I really could have been more inventive with all the greens through the ‘hungry gap’.
As other gardens got established – (Earthed Up! has 2 gardens and I tend an annual veg garden a mile from home too) – I preserved less and ate more.
Walking round a supermarket with my 2 kids the other week, I realised just how much we didn’t need to buy. In part because there’s so much junk: “Yes, I see that big Peppa Pig. It’s good you saw it. We’re not taking it home.” “We’re not getting strawberries, we have wild strawberries at home” (and it tops PAN’s Dirty Dozen list, I don’t want that cocktail of pesticides in our guts https://www.pan-uk.org/dirty-dozen). It was a long walk from the toothpaste up to the cheese aisle!
Summer moved along, eventually so did the tomatoes and peppers! I grew a silly amount of chillies this year. It’s been many years since I last did so I resolved to go big on the harvest and preserve. I won’t grow too many chillies next year, hold me to that…and buy the plants when I inevitably sow too many from the saved seeds. There is chilli oil, harissa paste, chilli vodka, and dried chillies. Capsicum yum!
Tomatoes. We don’t have enough tomato recipes. Claire Thomson’s book is on my Christmas list! We’ve had kilos. A good sized greenhouse that I restored in the spring plus Dalefoot tomato compost has resulted in months of glut. We’ve had many cherry tomatoes in salads and as sides and snacks. We’ve gladly given them away to unexpecting friends and family. I’ve hastily thrown a bag into the freezer to be a concern for future me (along with the redcurrants from higher on the bush). Now, I’m on with tomato sauce. There’s already soup and chutney.
Now we’re in bountiful autumn, I’m overwhelmed. So much to do, such little time. Red cabbage and cumin kraut slowly bubbling on the side, almost time to refrigerate it, taking its place alongside the pickled red cabbage. Illnesses to fend off and recover from, gathered from the 3 educational institutions my family frequent; I too have harnessed elder’s superfood strength, simply immersing in 40% vodka for a tincture; a spoonful a day keeps the doctor away. Just one apple a day, huh?
When apples are dripping off the trees, yes even in a ‘poor harvest’ year, I feel obliged to do as much as possible to get the vitamins and nourishment into people. And the pulp from juicing into worms, they love the sweetness!
Aha maybe on a dry morning I’ll cut the lavender for a calming scent at night and making lavender sugar biscuits.
Elderberry syrup recipe
From Cristina
I picked 1kg of elderberries, which made 1 litre of syrup. I collected the heads of berries and pulled them off with a fork or my hands when I got home. Then gave them a wash in my giant sieve, which is a little excessive but I like that it stretches across the kitchen sink. Next, I weighed them, and added half the weight of water (500ml) and simmered, don’t boil, for 20 minutes, mashing with a potato masher to get out all the goodness. Elderberries are poisonous raw so must be cooked.
After 20 minutes you strain through a sieve then measure how many ml of liquid you have. Recipes say various things about how much sugar to add. I had 1 litre of liquid so added 500g of sugar, also some lemon slices, orange slices, cloves and cinnamon sticks. These are simmered together for another 15-20 mins and then put into sterilised jars and store in the fridge once cool. It should last up to 6 months but do check regularly for signs of mould.
Earthed Up! 