We've just returned from a week's holiday to be met by a strange smell from the fridge. Amongst other possible culprits was a bag of home-grown apples from last Autumn - an experiment to see if they'd keep better in the cold and dark. Well - they haven't, those in boxes under the stairs have kept just as well, the few that are left.
We're now reaching the end of last year's stored produce so entering the 'hungry gap' time of year.
The apples will probably last till the rhubarb is ready to pick but we're down to smaller strange shaped ones and there's an increasing amount of soft damaged fruit among them.
We still have a small box of beetroot but again it's soft and starting to rot.
Sadly down to the last two parsnips! - didn't grow quite enough of these but wished we'd had carrots in store as well.
We're left with a lot of dried beans in jars - mainly because I forget to put them in soak the day before they're wanted, so we're not eating them! - and lots of tomatoes and broad beans in the freezer. Add to that a surplus of early purple broccoli and some salad leaves and we'd have a very strange diet if only eating home-grown produce!
This year we need to plan what we grow and what we eat a bit more carefully!
I think you plan everything extremely well. I suppose in the olden days the strange mixes would have been given to the animals to eat and people would have tolerated unimaginative meals more readily. Do you cook and freeze any of the apples when there's a good harvest?
ReplyDeleteI don't often do that. I have in the past but generally just box them and store with the wellies in the under-stair cupboard. My attempts at drying apple slices haven't worked too well. They taste really good, much sweeter than raw, but maybe I don't dry them enough as they go mouldy if kept in jars.
ReplyDelete