A year of foraging and garden preserves

October outdoors was, to put it mildly, craptacular. Winds strong enough to blow your eyebrows off and still unreasonably cold.

Plus I travelled interstate for a few days and then promptly followed it up by falling victim to one of the many and various plagues doing the rounds. So quite a lean pantry prep month, in short. Towards the end of the month I whipped out the dehydrator to preserve some of my abundant garden herbs at their peak and have added vibrantly colourful jars of parsley, chives, chive flowers and thyme to my shelves.

For anyone interested in becoming more self-sufficient, a dehydrator is a very sensible investment. The price of anything that’s had most of the water sucked out of it is wildly expensive, and money can’t put a price on the smug feeling you get when you pop a dehydrated orange slice into your G+T that didn’t come from a packet containing 6 slices retailing for $12.95.
I’ve got a Biochef Arizona Sol, my preference being for models that use metal vs plastic trays, and while I’ve exclusively used it for drying fruit for the couple of years I’ve owned it, I’m going to see if I can expand my repertoire a bit more over the coming months.

Mid spring is when I really need to start wrapping up the winter brassica harvest before it loses the last of its winter sweetness and starts to bolt. One brassica that does spectacularly well in my garden is giant green mustard and by mid spring it’s in serious combat with the rogue fennel to stage a hostile takeover. It’s self seeded so prolifically that I haven’t sown any for years. For some reason I never think to add it to the freezer but by all accounts it’s fine to freeze so have added some steamed portions to the freezer. I’d highly recommend it as a crop to add to a temperate vegetable gardens for sheer volume alone. The purple-green peppery leaves reach a massive size (clue’s in the name I guess) and it makes a great addition to wraps and salads, on burgers, in stir fries or casseroles and goes well with any meat – from fish to beef.

Mid spring is also when I do my main freezer audit and prioritise using up any remaining stores from the previous 12 months before adding too many provisions from the new growing season. While I tragically ran out of blackberries far too early as I only picked a few kilos of wild berries last season, I still had loads of frozen raspberries and strawberries, so this month I topped up the pantry with a few jars of raspberry jam and strawberry-chilli chutney (hands-down my favourite savory spread).