Blackboy Peaches

Three trees is probably two too many, they all came ready at once on the weekend. I think everyone else in the district may have them in their back yard too because I can't even give them away. Skatey takes about 6 to school everyday, the other children maybe have one a day. I collected as many as I had the time and patience to deal with and got the dehydrator out in desperation, the other kids seem to like them better dried anyway, they will probably only last a few weeks dried unless I hide some. If I lived closer to my brother I would go to his house to dehydrate, he creates his own electricity with a water wheel and windmill. He has so much power he's thinking of building a heated pool.
May be one day he'll come and create free energy for me!! Other things we have done with them is put them into fruit muffins, make a peach chutney, bottle them in syrup, stew them and freeze.
Maybe I should try a little wine making or brandied peaches....
Anyway Black boy peaches, so easy to grow form seed (stone), almost disease free, low maintenance - just give a winter and summer prune. Plant comfrey underneath.
Walah, fruit in 3-4 years.
I have plenty of seedlings if anyone wants one.

Autumn snuck up

while I was sewing and performing my other role of children's taxi driver, teacher, confidence booster, reminder er, bed maker, cook, washerwoman, and nurse. Wet beds, a trip twice to Nelson for a teen's broken finger, Skatey for two dental visits with the burden of paying for braces, bigger shoes and teaching to tie laces, reminding to go to math tutorials and to take instruments to school, covering up a guinea pig at midnight in the rain, figuring out if hay fever warrants a visit to the Dr, treating the dog for fleas, cleaning the chookhouse and organising someone to clean the chimney.

Autumn arrived, while I was busy. It hasn't been my best year for gardening, the weekend breather has revealed fresh weeds after rain and the summer crops setting seeds. A storm skirted by us, but we got enough wind to blow the corn down and cause us to look for some extra warm blankets and clothes.

Thankfully I might save some grocery money for (skateys) braces from the peaches, grapes, apples, berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and eggs from the garden.

Meanwhile we're going to grab every last whiff of summer that we can. When did summers start to pass so quickly?

Saving tomato seed

A beautiful Autumn weekend here, good for getting lots of washing dry, eating fresh peaches straight from the tree and doing a little seed saving.

I'm an amateur seed saver with only about 6 or 7 seasons practice. So far I've only done easy vegetables that don't cross pollinate easily such as peas, tomatoes, beans, parsnips and beneficial plants like buckwheat and phacelia. I've also had success with silver beet and beetroot by not having them flowering at the same time. If you want a comprehensive guide this book is great, I think the author is American so some of the information doesn't apply to NZ gardeners but the techniques described are great. Even better for Kiwi Gardeners is this one. I've borrowed it a couple of times from friends but they're understandably not keen to part with it for long as it is a great year round gardening reference.

So anyway here's how I save tomato seed. Pick a nice ripe tomato from a bush that displayed all the characteristics you like. For example: flavour, big fruit, disease resistant, early cropper, etc. You won't be able to save from F1 Hybrid tomatoes because they won't be true to seed. Instead choose good old heirlooms, they have more flavour anyway. My best performer this year has been "purple Cherokee"

Cut in half and squeeze out the pulp into a container, add water and swish it around. I have a feeling that if some float those ones will not be viable. I don't let the seed sit in the water as some books describe.
Then just strain them out picking out any pulp,

Then spread them on kitchen paper to dry out. You can pick them off the paper once dry and save in an envelope

but I just save them and plant them paper and all in spring. Save more than you need just in case you get a bad strike rate, then if you do get a great strike rate you can share or swap the seedlings in spring. Oh and don't forget to label and date them.

Blackcurrant syrup, vitamin C

The children have had a little change of season sniffles and I am starting volunteer work in our local craft co-op this week so I made some blackcurrant syrup to dose them up so they're not sick on my first day, fingers crossed.

My black currants didn't yield much this year but this is what I do with the frozen stores. You can dilute and drink the concentrate hot or cold.

Here's the recipe and the changes I made to it if you want a natural dose of vitamin C that the kids will drink:

Cover 3lb of black currants with water, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes til soft. Strain through a muslin cloth squeezing out all the goodness. ( Feed the solids leftover to the worm farm)

Put back into the pot and add:

1 cup of raw sugar and 1 cup of my brother's lovely native bush honey.

1 1/2 cups local organic cider vinegar. (The vinegar and sugar act as the preservers I understand)

Boil for 10 mins, then bottle into sterilised jars.

I keep the jars in the cupboard and once opened in the fridge, be sensible and check the seals are good and with no evidence of spoilage before we use.

Before use dilute to taste.

So obviously you guys don't have access to my local ( very cleaver and sustainable) brother's lovely honey and you may be use to modern sweetened drinks. The original recipe said 8 cups of SUGAR! No way do I give that to my kids so the one I do is quite vinegary. They still drink it happily, though the red head age 3 1/2 says "this tastes like dish water"
Teen, Skatey and Pj drink it happily.

Give it go, I'll publish some other syrups I use as well. Click comments to let me know how you get on.