April 1st, 2022Glen, About the House
Freeze your berries
If you are fortunate enough to share in this year’s crop of berries, or have managed to bulk buy at the right price, make the most of them by freezing the surplus fruits and enjoy the results for the rest of the year.
This method is mainly for strawberries, mulberries, gooseberries, blackberries and their other relatives – boysenberries, loganberries and youngberries – but other fruits such as cherries, oranges, and pineapples can be frozen in the same way.
Simply slice or cube the fruit and place the portions in a sealable plastic container, sprinkling each layer as you go with a thin coating of sugar. Then seal the container and place it in the freezer. The fruit will keep for months unopened in a freezer, or for up to six to eight weeks in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator.
To use the fruit, simply thaw it unopened – allowing about half an hour at room temperature. Don’t attempt to refreeze any leftovers. To avoid wastage, use smaller, individual containers.
Another freezing technique with the soft and pulpy berries is to put them through a blender with honey to taste and then pour into a sealable container and freeze.
For later use, the fruit can be taken out and put through a blender whilst still frozen, before use either as a topping for ice cream, or as a syrup for fruit salad.
If you normally use a small number of berries at any given time, you could loose freeze them in a compartmented ice cube tray, then store them in a freezer bag or sealed container. Then the required number can be thawed and used as you need them.
Beat the price rise – grow your own vegies
The world has gone mad! Thanks to bloody Putin and his mob suddenly the price of everything has gone right through the roof.
There’s little we can do to stem the rising cost of just living but we can make a big difference in our food bills by growing our own vegetables and we don’t need to turn our back yards into a market garden to do it.
Admittedly, such crops as cabbages, beans, tomatoes and other seasonal crops take time, effort and lots of space. But there are plenty of nutritional meals to be had from a wide range of the fast growing greens and root vegetables.
Better still, they are quick growing and mostly repetitive in what they give. In most cases, especially radishes, so there’s no real need to turn over much of your garden space. Many of them can be grown in large pots or along borders of ornamental garden beds, especially in the case of chives, onions and leafy beets, and particularly the attractive multicoloured Swiss chards.
There’s really nothing mystical or difficult about growing vegetables, especially the “salad group” of leafy annuals. Their main requirements are a warm, well-lit position in a well-drained, open, loamy soil with regular watering and nitrogen-rich fertiliser.
The root group – radishes, carrots, onions, etc – grow best on deeply cultivated, well-mulched, even sandy soil, with regular feeds of slow-releasing organic manures. Also lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower because these are dug up whole when harvested, and are best grown directly in an actual garden bed.
Most other leaf crops which can be regularly harvested such as silverbeet, chard rhubarb, etc, can usually thrive for several years if harvested regularly and not allowed to flower and go to seed and die off. They will grow successfully in a small bed, even alongside the herbs.
Got a gardening question: Email glenzgarden@gmail.com
