It turns out that after all that amazing harvesting you really must preserve your landslide of beautiful produce.
We have piles of shiny yellow and green Courgettes and Pattypan Summer Squash.
Basket after basket of the perfect and very lush ripe red Tomatoes (and the coresponding lovely rock-hard Green Tomatoes) that fill every available spot in our rather overstuffed storage areas.
Do I ever love the mountains of red and white Onions that glow like fresh chestnuts!
Then there is all of the amazing Autumn fruit…Fall rhubarb (not at all stringy!), Cider Apples, Crabapples and every so many Berries.
Delightful Abundance. Time to get to work…
From Pickled Peppers to Pickled Cranberries there does not seem to be much that can not be make a fantastic jar of pickles that get all tucked away for Winter meals.
Fabulous and flavourful Fruit and Herb Jellies… including a new one this year – delicate Lavender and Lemon Jelly, also a simple Mint and Apple and then we have the robust and ever popular Cranberry Red Pepper (about twenty kinds of jelly this year, yes our stove is more than a bit fruit syrup stained…yikes!).
A pretty Plum Chutney, a Blueberry and a Rhubarb Ketchup and some lovely searing “Cranberry Sriracha Sauce” made with ripe red Jalapeño Peppers.
We have put up so many kinds of Ferments, including Pickled Cabbage, Pickled Radishes, Sweet Onion Pickle and then the old-fashioned and quite hearty Salted Onions.
Herbs are gathered and hang in pretty bundles waiting to be stored in glass jars for Winter seasoning and for the cups of hot tea that make living in a really old and remarkable chilly house more bearable.
Some oil infusions filled with flower petals are also brewing away to make our healing Calendula salve.
Now it is time to get stuck in to the so very many batches of heat providing Salsa – Cranberry Salsa, Peach Salsa, Blueberry and Basil Salsa, Salsa Verde and more than a few dozen jars of the good ol’ Salsa rosa.
Phewf!
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