New Zealand Yam Harvest - Oca

I know I've talked before on my love of this unusual tuber. It's starchy, tasty, easy to grow. So what's not to love?

Well I think the main reason it's not taken off is due to the unpredictable harvests. Sometimes you can harvest bucket fulls from half a dozen plants and sometime you might just get a handful. 

Pickled Beets

 For some reason I can't remember the last time I pickled beets. 

Which is really odd as we probably eat over a jar a week. Whenever we have them with a meal we all eat loads and often have to open a second jar. 

So with plenty of beetroot in the garden I decided to harvest some (about 3 weeks ago) and make some pickled beetroot. I used an American recipe from my canning handbook that came with my pressure canner. 

This involved boiling the beets up to peel them (so so easy to do, don't peel beets if you can help it with a peeler - this way the skins just slip off).  

Then slicing them and boiling them in the pickle mixture for 5 minutes. Then fill the jars with beets and the pickling mixture (with 1/2" head space) and process for 30 minutes in a boiling water bath canner. 

The mixture is simple. 

7lb of beets

4 cups vinegar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

2 cinnamon sticks

(onions if you want - we didn't)

I did double the mixture and ended up with about 16 jars. 

We left it for three weeks to infuse and it tried them just the other night. We ate a jar easily in one sitting so full approval from everyone! Must make more now!

Who else loves their pickled beets. 

Our Pottery Is Back

This week we got our pottery back from our day in the summer (which I didn't get round to posting about so I'll do a post about it soon!). 

We did the same thing last year and all enjoyed it. It's fair to sya the children all had a bit of a flair for it, must be all the time with playdough! 

It was lovely unwrapping it together and seeing everything with the glaze on and how they have been finished. 

We made all these things to be used though, and the children were using their cups straight away! 

Such a fun thing to do as a family - far better than a day at a theme park!

Shepherd's Crook

The boy has been cast as a shepherd in the school play (typecast I tell ya!).

For his costume he needed a crook. His friends all had foam ones, but no way was I going to buy something for it. 

Instead he took a real crook in, one I have used many times. He was really pleased with it, even though I told him not to catch any of his friends with it!

He said that when he got to school all his friends flocked (see what I did there...) around him to have a look! 

 Who remembers their plays from primary school?

November Garden Walk About

I'm going to try and do a "walk about" video once a month. I enjoy looking back at the ones I did in 2017 and think it would be a nice record of what we grow each year. 

Obviously it's November (well December now), so not the most exciting garden month, but still a bit going on.

As soon as the Christmas rush is over I can concentrate on some other jobs, like laying some hedging, pruning the apple trees, coppicing the hybrid willow, getting other veg beds ready to plant up. I also have a tree to rip out and replace. 

 But I like how even when you don't think you've done much there is still progress. the polytunnel is going to look really good come early spring I think! 

How much is everyone else managing to do in their garden this time of year?