A bit of planning can’t do any harm

I don’t know about the rest of you allotmenteers and veggie growers, but I find it a pretty time consuming hobby. Now I’m not complaining at all as I love to spend as much time as possible in the fresh air whatever the weather.

It’s just that after an evening of digging in the plot or even in the glorious summer months just popping down to pick some veg. By the time your nice freshly picked produce makes it to the kitchen your either short on time or too tired to cook!

Now with the weather warming up and most of my seeds and seedlings in the ground, I am trying to be more sensible and have actually done a bit of planning. That isn’t to say I have stuck to all of my plans, but making a plan is a start!

I have thought more about what I like to eat, what stores well and how I can plant things to keep us going through more of the year. Avoiding some of those gluts where even your friends and family will get fed up of the sight of courgettes (my husband and steps-sons were scarred for life by this one after my first year of growing!) and preventing the need to pop to the supermarket for top ups at other times.

So the plan –to grow more winter vegetables and other items that can be dried, stored, pickled and juiced. This generally translates to:

More beans – probably the only veg the whole family eats so I’m growing nine varieties this year. Yes that might be a bit excessive, but beans can be dried and frozen making them great for year round consumption. I’ve gone for french runner beans as they produce crops for months without the need for too much looking after. Along with broad, berlotto and cannelloni beans for freezing and drying, this will be my first year drying beans so I’ll let you know how I get on with this at a later date.

Smaller amounts of a bigger variety of vegetables with successional sowings – this is proving the hardest to achieve as I am very bad as planting, growing or evening cooking a small amount of anything!

Grow more winter veg – This is a relatively new thing to me, but I want to avoid those trips to the supermarket in the winter to add some variety to the squashes, parsnips and potatoes stored from summer harvests. Last year I tried kale which lasted really well and salad leaves in the greenhouse. All these I will continue with, but I am also going to add brussels (my step sons won’t thank me for that one), sprouting broccoli and Swiss chard.

Winter storage – some vegetables store for months, but you have to make sure you store them correctly. Root vegetables store well once dug up, in tubs filled with DRY earth or sand, potatoes store well in paper or hessian sacks (again in a cool, dark, dry place) as do onions (just in trays) and squashes are great for storage.

A new one for me to try this year is going to be storing apples. There is an old orchard at the in-laws farm and most of the apples tend to just drop on the floor for the cattle to eat. I hate to see so many go to waste so I’m going to try storing more to use later in the year, although finding suitable storage could be a challenge. Garage and shed space is limited so I might have to get more imaginative. I remember my Grandmother telling me that her family used to store apples under beds in the winter, but I’m not sure how well this suggestion will go down with the hubby….hmmm maybe he’ll let me have a bit more garage space instead!

Drying/pickling/freezing– a great way of storing things, it’s something I tried last year and was quite successful so am going to be expanding my efforts this year. It looks like I’m going to have a bumper crop of strawberries so that will be great for jam and will add a bit of variety to the truck load of damson jam I made last year. I’ll also be drying beans, freezing apples, rhubarb, berries and anything else I can think of, making chutney out of just about everything!

Juicing, cordials and alcohol – another one for me to expand on as it seemed to go down well in the Christmas hampers I put together for friends and family last year. So I’m on the lookout for new recipes to use with as much of my produce as possible!