Although produce from the garden is limited at the moment, I still wanted to make sure that we have access to the abundance of summer when the winter comes around. Next year I hope to have a good tomato harvest, but I expect this year’s to be small, late and only enough for immediate use.
I had heard about a seller of fruit and veg who visits a nearby town once a week and who has good quality produce to buy in bulk, so this morning at 7:15 I set off to investigate. I had been warned to get there early – ideally between 7:30 and 8 – and the advice was good. Even just after 7:30, when the sun was struggling to be seen through the morning mist, the place was busy. Other stall-holders were just setting up, but the fruit and veg man (and half a dozen staff) were doing a good trade.
I had gone specifically to buy peaches and tomatoes for bottling, having been so successful with both these in the past. And, much to my delight, there were trays of flat peaches and of plum tomatoes – I was even given a peach to taste and, my word, it was fabulous. So I bit the bullet (like the peach) and bought four trays of each.
I was back home by 8:30, and had even had time to take a picture or two on the way, although by that time the mist was clearing:
Homeward bound
Now, I have some work to do in the kitchen…
The Snail of Happiness 
davidprosser
/ August 7, 2015Your cargo looks fantastic, I hope the bottling goes well. The homeward bound picture shows why Wales is such a special place. It was great.
xxx Huge Hugs xxx
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 7, 2015Yes, we’e very lucky to be able to live here… beautiful land
xxx hugs xxx
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nanacathy2
/ August 7, 2015They all look lovely. I have been picking more raspberries and blackcurrants at Dads garden. I shall miss it next year.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015A lovely final legacy – I’m sure he would have been delighted to know that you are making the most of this final harvest
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thecontentedcrafter
/ August 7, 2015Fabulous!! Nothing tastes as good as soft fruit freshly plucked ….. I miss those days when that was a regular part of each season. I would be so pleased, proud and happy standing back and looking at my rows of preserved fruits 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 7, 2015You really can’t beat a cupboard full of preserved fruit! And the taste of summer fruits in the winter is magic to me when I know I’ve got them because I preserved them myself.
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katechiconi
/ August 7, 2015Beautiful produce! It’ll be a messy day or so, but then you’ll have rows of jars to admire, be proud of and enjoy when the sun has gone elsewhere in the coming winter!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015Yes – lots of stickiness! The only trouble with the doughnut peaches is that they are pale in colour, so you don’t get quite the same glow in the cupboard as you do with the golden ones… still, I will feel very smug when they are all done.
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katechiconi
/ August 8, 2015It’s the red splatter all over the kitchen from doing tomato sauce…
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015And all the red cloths/teatowels/dogs!
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narf77
/ August 7, 2015And here I was thinking that teaser photo on Facebook was your enviro market day! Love those doughnut peaches. They are SOOO sweet. Have fun preserving 🙂
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anne54
/ August 7, 2015I bet your car smelt amazing too. 😊 I am curious to know how you preserve them. It is something I have long thought about doing, but never got around to. Do you bottle them and then cook the bottles for a little while?
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arlingwoman
/ August 7, 2015Not sure if you can bottle large quantities, but there’s a great book called Food in Jars, by Marissa McClellan. She’s got a blog, too. She greatly simplifies the usual instructions and the recipes are small quantities, so you can try things…
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015Thank you, I will check her out. I only do a few things currently and it would be good to experiment a bit.
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arlingwoman
/ August 8, 2015It’s lots of pickling and some jams
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015Thank you… off to check that out now
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anne54
/ August 9, 2015Thank you for the name to follow up.
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arlingwoman
/ August 9, 2015I’ve been using the recipes and they are really good, with the exception of the pickled zucchini, which were a bit too much like those bitingly sour Indian pickles….
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015Yes the car smelt lovely… and when I walked into my kitchen this morning I was greeted by the the aroma of peaches – bliss!
For tomatoes I roast them first, pass them through a mill to make passata and then bottle the hot sauce before using a hot water bath. For the peaches I skin them and remove the stones, then cook them for a couple of minutes in syrup before bottling and using a water bath. This is fine for acidic produce, but vegetables need to be bottled under pressure to ensure they are safe – for this purpose I have a pressure canner… which I had to order from the US because they are simply not available in the UK.
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anne54
/ August 8, 2015Thanks for all that info. You make it sound very easy, and I bet it is fun! And satisfying. Enjoy your weekend
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arlingwoman
/ August 7, 2015Goodness, Jan, I’ve been feeling bad about not canning so much this year–been eating it as it comes. If I could get more produce at a good price nearby I would, but alas, here in Arlington, the farmers charge what the market will bear, so I’d gain lovely canned stuff but the cost would not be helpful. Good luck in bottling up those goodies! You will enjoy them so much in January!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ August 8, 2015I’m so excited to find a source of cheap bulk produce – it’s not easy, but once I found out about this market, I just had to go and check it out and I really wasn’t disappointed/
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