Wealden Times | WT200 | October 2018 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Garden
Above left: Rose hips are great for cordials and fruit gins. Right: The taste of freshly dug potatoes is a revelation
artistically (they make great subjects for still-life paintings),
plump and gleaming in the low autumn light.
Hedgerow harvests
Satisfy the hunter gatherer urge by heading out into the
hedgerows for a foraging session. Many of us have subverted
this urge into shopping, but the dopamine hit we get from
picking fruit is the same and is free (but remember the
needs of wildlife and don’t go on too much of a splurge).
You might be lucky enough to catch the very
last of the blackberries, there may be wild apples
and even cobnuts around, but you will definitely
find rose hips, elderberries and sloes. These can be
made into cordials, or fruit gins and vodkas.
Sloe gin is simple to make – half fill a container with
sloes (pricked or frozen and then defrosted to break the
skins), add some sugar (ratio of fruit to sugar approx
2:1) and fill to the top with gin. Stir each day for a
week and then leave to mature until Christmas.
Unearthing treasures
Harvesting root crops is nearly as exciting as digging
for treasure (okay, 18 carrots might not be as valuable
as 18 carats, but there’s less danger from pirates). It’s
exciting partly because until you dig down into the
soil, you have no idea of the potential harvest.
Main crop potatoes are ready to lift once the haulm (leafy
top growth) has died back in early autumn. They can be
left in the ground and dug up when required, but if you
need the space for other crops, or suffer with keel slugs
(underground slugs that attack tubers and root crops) or
blight, it is probably better to lift and store the tubers.
Unearth potatoes carefully. Push your fork gently
into the ground a distance away from the plant to avoid
spearing or slicing through them. Spread them out to dry
in the open air for an hour or so to enable their skins to
toughen up for storing. Potatoes need to be stored in dry,
dark conditions, or they turn green and produce the toxic
chemical solanine, but don’t be tempted to put them in the
fridge, as it is too cold and will adversely affect the flavour.
Hessian sacks are ideal, allowing air to circulate,
while keeping the light out. Check occasionally
and remove any tubers that may be rotting (as with
apples, one bad one may very well spoil the whole lot,
no matter what the Jacksons said in the song).
Other roots, such as carrots, beetroot, parsnips, turnips
and swede, can be left in the ground and harvested when
needed, but to stop them being attacked by pests and if
your ground freezes too hard in the winter, it’s best to
lift them too and store in a protected environment.
Once lifted, cut off the leaves and stems to prevent
moisture being drawn out of the roots. Find an old wooden
box, or storage container and put a layer of sand, sawdust
or multi-purpose compost (kept moist, but not wet) in the
bottom, then a layer of roots, then more sand/compost
etc. Store in a shed/garage/cellar, but make sure that the
pests can’t get at them – don’t seal with a lid, though, as
this may create an airless, unhealthy environment.
If you have space outside, or have large quantities to
store, you could build a clamp, which is a traditional way
of keeping vegetables available all through the winter.
Find a flat, dry patch of ground and dig a trench around
it to ensure that it stays well drained. Put straw/gravel/
compost in the trench to stop earth filling it back up,
then put a layer of straw on the base of the clamp.
Arrange some roots on top, making sure they don’t touch,
then layer straw and root crops alternately into a pyramid
shaped mound (so that water doesn’t settle on the top). The
earth from the trench can be piled over the final layer.
Join Jo on her monthly gardening course
01233 861149 jo@hornbrookmanor.co.uk
Help and advice
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