It’s a good plum year, and they’re falling fast. I’ve already cooked some and frozen some, now encouraging Mr C to make some plum wine …
Yesterday I picked about 4 litres of blackcurrants. About half went into the freezer on oven trays, so we can have free – flow frozen berries for winter baking and for the kids’ “cocktails” (bubbly water with frozen berries). The rest went into a small batch of jam.
We eat very little jam these days, so I make small batches with low sugar content and freeze it in silicon muffin trays. One jam muffin is just the right size to plop into a jar and keep in the fridge.
Just look at all those lovely currants! I was never a big blackcurrant fan as a kid. I have a memory of them being small, a bit dry and kindof disappointing. Maybe the NZ climate isn’t right for them, or maybe the varieties have just changed a lot over the years. In any case these are plump and juicy and sweet.
One particular bush produces these huge berries, the size of small grapes. A lot of these ones never make it into the bucket!
The only crop the slugs don’t want! I harvested on Sunday and made the first braid last night.
I made a decision not to weigh my harvests this year, because I’m so defeated by the slug problem. But with the exception of salad leaves (there’s been a lot of those from the veranda vege patch), I have been diligent in photographing all our harvests, and I’m putting them all into a gallery, here.
They’re late, but at least we beat the slugs to them
Radishes, mint, chives and rhubarb. Harvest time starts at last!
I got some help planting onions this morning.
Elsewhere in the vege patch, the garlic I planted in the autumn is well on its way.
Chives are up all over the place … They spread themselves a little more every year
And speaking of spreading, last year’s mint plant is coming back with a vengeance. Roll on mojito season!
When I came in for lunch, I found some of last year’s pumpkin soup in the freezer.
Does a Saturday morning get much better than that?
It’s that time of year again. I just repotted all my baby chilli plants. Now it’s time to get the tomatoes started.
Beans …
And blackberries. Not so many of them yet, but there are a lot more to come …
This week I pulled up the rest of our garlic, 3.7kg of it. The bunch to the left in this first picture were too stiff to braid. The ones on the right are what we will plant out again in the autumn.
In the second photo you can see the remains of harvest #1 on the right. On the left is my monster braid – 1.8kg
We like garlic 🙂
