fifteenth - how to make pickled cucumbers

We're officially in the middle of a cucumber glut!

A crate a day. All you can eat; straight off the vine, in salads, and sandwiches, and dips and like apples. We're filling the baskets of anyone passing through. And it's still early in the season!

We planted cucumbers last year for the first time and I fell in love. I had one plant and I think I squealed in delight every single time I picked a fruit from its vine. They were so crunchy and delicious and so user friendly.

This year I planted trays and trays of seeds. And when their green leaves poked out of the soil I quickly repotted them to give their roots space until they took up half of the green house. They were a hardy plant and seemed to thrive under cover.

When it came time to plant them in the ground my farmer boy read me a section from Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables South Of Australia;

Unless you intend to put up enough cucumber pickles to supply all the rellies, neighbours and friends, two vines will almost certainly become one vine too many.

And then I promptly ignored him and planted about 50 plants. Yep, I know.

So right now, we're getting through them, only just, but come next week, or into February - who knows.

Originally I found our pickle recipe on my instagram friend Jules @procrasticraft's page . We've made them so many times over the past few weeks that they've become a kitchen staple. They're super simple to make and ridiculously delicious to eat.

I asked Jules and she kindly gave me permission to share her recipe, so here it is. Just keep in mind that the measurements aren't exact and each time I make them the number of jars I fill changes.

PICKLED CUCUMBERS

Gather

• five medium sized jars - sterilised
• enough cucumbers to stuff the jars full
• fresh bay leaves
• 1tsp each per jar cumin, coriander, mustard seeds
• 4 cups cider vinegar
• 2 cup water
• 3Tbs each sugar and iodised salt

Make

To each jar add 2 fresh bay leaves, and 1tsp each of cumin, coriander and mustard seeds and then your cucumbers.

In a saucepan put the cider vinegar, water, sugar and salt.

Heat until the sugar and the salt have dissolved but do not bring to the boil.

Cool slightly, fill each jar, seal and store.

Leave a day or two and then EAT!

I have no idea how long they'll last but given that they are full of vinegar, sugar and salt, I'd say quite some time. Also we refrigerate the jars after we open them.

Modifications

We're not big on cumin so we ditched it.
We have masses of garlic so we peel and slice a couple of cloves per jar.
We tried pepper corns but they didn't seem to do anything for the flavour.
We haven't tried dill yet because we don't have any but are going to grow some to add.
We cut down on the sugar for taste.

You know what else? I think there's no reason why this recipe wouldn't work as a pickler for all manner of things...beetroot, onions, carrots...

The only thing that I can't work out is if it's possible to reuse the liquid in another batch, it seems like such a waste to chuck it in the compost. Do you know?

So are you in a pickle?
Do you have a go-to recipe?
What are your fave things to pickle?
Do you think you'll try these?

Thanks Jules!

Happy pickling you guys

Love Kate

xoxo

thirteenth

Do you want to know what makes me happy?

Eating what's available seasonally makes me happy. Experimenting with new varieties and flavours makes me happy. Picking baskets filled with produce makes me happy. Growing as much of our own fruit and veg as we can makes me happy. Sharing our bounty with friends and family and those in difficult circumstances makes me happy. And making the most of what we have by using it all and not letting it go to waste makes me happy.

This year we had one apricot tree that fruited. We shared the bounty with the birds and carried a basketful home.

That basket sat on the dinning-room table for a couple of days and filled the bellies and pockets of everybody who passed by.

Once the fruit started to go soft I cooked one kilogram of fruit into four jars of jam.

And I baked 800 grams into an apricot upside-down cake.

This bowlful is all that's left. My guess is that it'll be empty by this time tomorrow otherwise I'll cut the remainder into halves and freeze them for winter baking.

I love summer's bounty. It feels like everyday there is enough produce to pick to keep us well fed with a bit over to give away and to preserve. It's autumn's bounty that often gets a bit out of control.


So tell me lovely ones; what's making you happy today?

Wishing you the sweetest rest of your Wednesday.

Love Kate

xoxo

the very last of the tomatoes

It's funny in life that so often you don't know that something was the last until it is over. The last time your child wears something before they grow out of it, the last time you take a photo of your baby with all her baby teeth, the last time you hug someone you love before they leave, the last time you hang your washing on the line outside before the days become too cold…



Mostly food gardening is a bit like that for me. We spend much of summer and autumn enjoying bountiful basil. Plucking those leaves and eating them on and in almost every dish we create. And then one morning the frost hits it and it's over. Burnt. And that's it for another year. It's the same with so many crops, from plentiful to finished over night.

One season passes, another begins.


This week we pulled the very last of the tomato vines out of the garden and let the chickens into the poly tunnels to clean up the scraps. We collected every last red tomato and brought them inside, we picked crates of green fruit for the chooks, we made piles of green leaves and vines for the compost and we stashed the stakes for the next year.

Then we forked each bed to aerate them, we sprinkled rock minerals, we filled them up with compost and then we planted garlic and kale and other wintry, new season's veg.

For some reason this week I got to choose for the tomato season to be over. It had slowed right down but I could have probably gotten another bowl or two from the poly tunnels over the next week or so. But it feels like the time is right. The chicks needed the space to explore, the vines are getting all mushy and disgusting from rotting fruit, we need the space for the new season and the days are getting shorter and I'm running out of time to pick.

So this season, perhaps for the first time ever, I do know that I have just picked my last crate of tomatoes. I think I'll oven dry a couple of trays, eat as many as we can in sandwiches and salads and do one more batch in Fowlers jars. It's a strange feeling and I almost feel like I'm cheating mother nature, but I can tell you that late season's tomatoes never tasted so good. I am enjoying every single one like it's my last - because it is almost my last.

Happy season of green, southern peeps, and for those of you up north, enjoy your bounty.

Big love x

i say tomato

Can I tell you a secret?

I don't like fancy tomatoes. I know, so very wrong for an organic farmer to admit. But I'll take an under-ripe, red, round, firm tomato over a fancy, overly tasty, pulpy tomato any day.


I think it started way back about seven years ago. We were growing tomatoes in a pretty serious way for restaurants and shops and markets and I was growing Miss Pepper in my belly. And while the tomatoes were blossoming and blooming and growing beautifully, I was sick, sick, sick.

And all through those early months of my pregnancy, my main job was to rummage around through the foliage in the poly tunnel and pick out the juicy, red tomatoes. Sounds like fun huh?

Imagine a hot sunny day, condensation dripping down the sides of the poly tunnel and off the roof and occasionally dripping onto your head or down your neck. Imagine the sticky tomato tar that covers your hands and arms up to your elbows as you reach through the plants to grab the fruit. Imagine thinking you've spotted the most perfect, plump, red tomato and when you wrap your fingers around it it disintegrates in your hand, a warm, overripe pulpy mess. Imagine breathing in that humid hot-house air and feeling like there wasn't enough oxygen for both you and the tomatoes. Imagine the overwhelming smell of the tomato plants and the tomatoes themselves, kinda acidic and sweet and strong. Imagine spending hours and hours, filling buckets and crates and feeling sick and pregnant and gagging and so over everything tomato. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Seven years on, every single March and April day I've been spending an hour or two in the poly tunnels picking tomatoes, and that tomato smell and the feeling on my fingers takes me straight back there and I feel a little queasy. Seven years on, while I've still lost my love for the exotic and heirloom tomato, we most certainly, unquestionably have won with our wonderful Pepper Berry. I'll take her over a Cherokee Purple or a Purple Russian any day.

Bye now

xx

Autumn break

Last night Autumn broke and now winter is on her way.

It's funny but although Autumn always makes me feel a bit melancholy about the loss of sunshine and the cold to come, Autumn also seems like the time of year that I am most sure of who I am. In Autumn I feel the most me.

In Autumn there are heads and hands to keep warm. Knitting becomes less of a hobby and more of a necessity. Patterns are chosen, baskets of wool are brought out and considered and a queue is made. As soon as I cast off something it is grabbed and worn and I cast on the next.

Ravelry details here.
 
I love how in Autumn we can go from - there's nothing for dinner - to a table full of freshly picked tomatoes - to a saucepan full of passata - to the most delicious tomato and noodle soup ever. And all in the space of an hour.

In Autumn we try to spend as much time outside while we still can. We walk to do the farm chores and sometimes we find little friends in the egg trailer.

In Autumn we pick up sticks for the wood stove wherever we go. We stockpile them in the kitchen basket and in the wood shed. It wont be long before dry sticks will be hard to find.

In Autumn there are always crates of fruit everywhere I look, the floor is sticky, the stove top is full and the sink is full of jam pots. In Autumn there are always rubber bands soaking, jars warming and the Fowlers machine gurgling.

In Autumn the shelves start groaning under the weight of filled bottles and jars and containers. We come to the end of what we preserved last year and put away what we have for next.


In Autumn every year I think of this fruit and veg grown with love, with no nasties, by us or by people we know and know love what they do and I know that we couldn't do this any other way. It makes a difference to the flavour and how good it is for us - I'm sure of it.

In Autumn the garden changes again, everything looks lush and green and stands up tall. Out with the old, in with the new.

This year I've been making wreaths on wisteria hoops to dry the seeds and roots for later. The world looks pretty good through coriander glasses don't you think?

In Autumn I feel confident that I'm where I need to be. I am busier than at any other time of the year, but as each job gets ticked off my mental list; as each tree in the orchard is stripped, as each crate of fruit gets emptied, as each pile of fire wood is covered, I feel that we are getting closer to being ready for winter. Autumn brings with it a sense of achievement. It is the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

Ours is a slow way of living but it sure is beautiful and it tastes delicious too.


Go gently friends.

xx

ps this one's for you Heike - thanks for being so patient. x

Poly jungle

Our family don't do Christmas. Not religiously, not culturally, not socially. It's just not our thing. 

So you can imagine this time of year feels a bit strange. Mostly it's fine. Sometimes it feels like there's this great big party that everyone but us is invited to. But then it's also this lovely peaceful time when we have no place to go, no one to see and loads of time to spend together doing jobs we haven't had time for all year.

Today we spent a few hours in poly tunnel two. Last September we seeded tomatoes onto drip line to see if we could avoid all the pricking out and transplant shock that slows the whole growing process down every year. We had thought we were clever and on to a new thing. We had thought we would have extra early tomatoes this season.

And while poly tunnel one has thrived and grown beautiful healthy plants that look right on track for our earliest season ever, for some reason we neglected poly tunnel two. And the fat hen and dandelions took over. And the poly tunnel became a poly jungle (thanks Dee x).

We did consider plowing it all in and starting from scratch. But when we found established plants in amongst the triffids, we decided to give them a go.

So we yanked all the weeds out and fed them to the chooks. We disposed of the nest of eggs that had been there for goodness knows how long. We trellised all the vines. We fertilised them and composted them and watered them in. We whispered sweet blessings to them. And then we tucked them all into a bed of mulch.

Now all that's left to do is to irrigate them and hope that they bulk up, blossom and fruit.

Grow little tomato plants, GROW!

From our family to yours, wonderful wishes for a merry and sweet Christmas. And if it's not your thing, enjoy the quiet and the peace.

And happy growing.

xx

the taste of early summer

If tastes and smells and textures hold memories, then broad bean season is filled to the brim with them.

The burning sun on our skin as we gather around the garden beds with our bowls and baskets ready for the harvest. The feel of the slightly fuzzy, swollen pods that we press to make certain their beans are ready. The tug of the pods off the vine. The hollow sound the fat, green pods make as they hit the enamel of the empty bowls that slowly dulls as the bowls gets fuller and fuller. The chatter amongst us. The songs of the kookaburra family nearby. The brilliant blue sky. The feeling of early summer freedom and possibility.

Then the gathering around the filled bean bowls on the blanket. The discussion about podding technique. The fleshy, spongy feeling of the pod skin ripped apart. The pop of the shiny beans as they bounce out of their tight enclosures into the bowl. The flavour of a sneaky fresh bean. Yum! The look of the empty bean bowl filling and the full pod bowl slowly emptying. The eternal 'to double pod or not to double pod' question. 

And then the cooking. Mostly just a quick pan fry in our house. Sometimes with garlic. Often with a side of eggs and toast.

And then the eating. All those summer flavours. They've been worth the long wait. They are as sweet and as garlicky and as salty and delicious as we remember. 

We'll eat them most nights for a while. Just plain and then a bit more fancy as the weeks go on. 

This is the taste of our early summer days. This is what it's all about.

The three winners of the Kester Black nail polish are;
FrogGooseAndBear
Melissa Goodsell
Samantha Dennison

Congratulations you guys. Email me your postal deets and the gorgeous Anna will get your packages in the mail as soon as possible. Yay!

And for everyone else, I hope you are happy. I hope things are delicious in your world and that your lists are getting shorter as the days are getting longer, or shorter as the case may be.

Big broad bean love.
And tell me, do you double pod, or do you not?

xx

saving spinach

So we are half way through spring, and although it is almost impossible to believe considering the wintry weather outside, the race is on to get the kitchen garden summer ready. To pull out the last of the wintry crops, to dig some compost into the soil and to start planting out the new season's seeds.

On our farm the market gardens are almost always too wet to work the soil until mid to late November, so it is nice to have a bit of a micro climate to get a head start in.

The first thing that needs to happen up here is we need to make some room. Out with the old and in with the new. This almost always involves us walking around the garden a few times working out what flowers need to stay for the bees and seed saving, what plants are looking like they are past their peak and need to come out, and what can stay in the ground for a bit longer.

We plant loads of spinach every year and although we've enjoyed it in almost every meal for the past few months, the start of the warmer months means it will soon be bolting and we need to pick it at it's peak now and save it for future eating.

So I've been wandering around the garden picking big boxes of spinach.

Then I wash it and place it still wet in a deep frying pan on the cooker for a few minutes to wilt.

(Gosh, I wish I wiped down the cooker before I took that photo.)

Once wilted, I squeeze as much water out of the spinach and then use scissors to chop it quite finely.

Then I make tight little spinach balls of about a handful of mixture each and pop them in the freezer on a plate. Freezing them on the plate ensures they don't stick together and are easy to separate when I need them later on.

Once they are frozen, I pop them into a container all together and back into the freezer.

It never failes to amaze me that the contents of an entire garden bed can fit into a small tub.

I'd guess it is completely safe to keep the spinach balls in the freezer for four or five months although I'm sure I've used ours up to eight months later.

I use some of the stalks for the balls and we juice the rest and freeze it for stock.

I did drink a glass of straight spinach juice just because my farmer boy thought it would be good for us, but I do not recommend that at all. Ew!!

And then I repeat the snipping, washing, wilting, squeezing, snipping, shaping, freezing until there's no more spinach to be seen.

And the garden gaps are filled and a new season of growing begins.


Are you preserving? Planting? Gobbling?

I've missed you.

xx