Sunday 16 September 2012

Preserv

It's been a really mixed year for garden produce. Of course last year was outstanding, so the comparison is all the more stark.

No Quince; low volme of raspberries and strawberries, and those we did have just didn't have much flavour.  A reduced number of apples, and the crop has been devastated by the blasted parakeets;  very few pears, and those have also been stolen by the parakeets.   Sweetcorn did reasonably well; courgettes were good;  tomaotes - much fewer than usual garlic, less than usual. Blackcurrants in abundance. Peas - a small crop; salad leaves - ok, cucumber - ok. Chillies were good. The cherry crop was abysmal.  Basil failed completely. Pumpkins and squash - we have quite a few, haven't tried them yet.

Yesterday DH picked the last of the tomatoes, and he's turning them into passata today.  Last year we produced more jars than I can count.  This year, many of those hars are sitting empty in the cupboard.

We had some wind which had knocked over many of the sweetcorn plants.  I picked them yesterday, then blanched and froze the cobs. 

The Autumn raspberries have been cropping well, and these are much more full of flavour - all that late sunshine.

The hostas have been glorious. Not edible of course, but lovely nonetheless. 

And now we're clearing vegetable beds, cleaning the greenhouse,  doing the autunmn pruning, and generally getting ready for winter.

Next year will, I hope, be better.

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