Low Carbon Preserving Workshop

Saturday 10th September saw OTAGS hosting a preserving workshop in association with Cracking Good Food. The aim of the session was to show how you can manage gluts of produce without spending hours cooking chutneys!  Vicki Leng, local cook and preserving enthusiast took participants through how to dehydrate apples, salt beans, pickle cucumbers and dehydrate tomatoes all in the 3 hour session.

The essential piece of equipment we used during the day was a dehydrator. It has 14 square feet of drying space, and is designed to run on a low heat (the temperature range can be set between (29 - 68 °C) whilst at the same time running a fan to dry the food out.  So unlike dehydrating food in your oven its energy efficient and you can then store food in jars without the need to run a freezer.  Food preserved this way will keep for at least 9 months, so you can be eating sun riped tomatoes that you've grown long after the UK tomato growing season has ended.   If they are really really dry you can just jar them once they've been dehydrated. Or if they have some moisture remaining pack them into small jars and cover with olive oil.

Vicki showing Claire, Dave and Roy how the tomatoes are coming along in the dehydrator.

Similarly, Apple rings are really easy to process with the dehydrator - simply core, thinly slice, dip into some water with lemon juice to stop them from discolouring, load into the dehydrator for 3 hours then pack into sterilised jars.

We also salted beans, which was quick and straightforward. Vicki explained that this isn't a technique that enables you to serve up green beans that will taste the same as those you cook freshly picked in the usual way (e.g. steam). Rather its one way of managing part of your bean glut that doesn't require freezer space or use of fossil fuels.  Very simply, using a clean sterilised jar we packed sliced green beans (french or runner) in layers with salt. A layer of salt followed by a layer of beans, then another layer of salt until the jar was full.  After the beans and the salt have been in the jar overnight you can top up the jar packing more beans and salt in, as the salt draws the water out of the beans which makes them shrink.

We tasted some salted beans that Vicki had de-salted earlier in the day and while they didn't taste like fresh beans adding them to soups, stews and chillis would certainly work... once you've rinsed them to remove as much salt as possible.

The session was funded by our Local Food fund grant for Orchard 49.  Thanks to Laura for organising the workshop and to Vicki for sharing her knowledge with us.

Preserving workshop full

Our Preserving workshop on 10th September is now full.  Vicki may repeat the workshop, in association with Cracking Good Food (charged for, not free). If you are interested get in touch with us or Cracking Good Food.

Budding Session

Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit group came to show us how to propagate fruit trees using budding. A small group of us gathered to learn how to do this.  We began by practising on some prunings from trees on the site - to try our hand at the technique.

Some say budding is easier than grafting (which Peter has also done with us).  Only one of our number really got the hang of this technique. It involves making a horizontal cut in the bark (through to the cambium layer), called the top of the T, and then cutting down from the middle of that down the tree. Then comes the fiddly bit.  You then very carefully open up the T section you've made in the tree (rootstock) to expose the green wood beneath.  Budding knives have a special area on their blade which is supposed to make this easier, but it was tricky!

Pete making his T section cut on the rootstock

The next step is to get your budding material (the variety you want to create) and you slice off a bud from the material (this is really neat as unlike grafting it means you can create lots of trees from one branch of a tree, because it has lots of buds on it).  Again though, this was very fiddly and you needed to be really careful not to touch the green wood underneath the bud - as it needs to be spotless  in order to stand a good chance of taking.

Once you've taken your bud off your branch you then tease out the core of the bud - as you want the two trees to join - and doing this helps with the joining.

Once that has been done you then slide the bud into the T section you've created, slice off any spare wood at the top, bind it up with grafting tape and wait.  Watering well is essential to give the process the best chance of success.

Once we'd practiced we went and did some budding on some trees in pots and then went over to the orchard to bud some more of the rootstock. Sadly, the plum rootstock was too dry, so it wasn't feasible to try budding onto these.

We will have to see if these bud grafts take - time will tell.

Summer Pruning session

We were lucky to have a warm sunny day for our summer pruning session on Saturday 20th August. Rod Everett from Middlewood Trust came down to run the session, which focused on tackling stone fruit trees.  We also talked a little bit about pruning apples to encourage more fruit, but the majority of the day was spent pruning plum and gage trees which needed attention. Click on this link to view the photos of the day.

Thanks to Rod for a great session, to Laura for organising it and to Vicki for the wonderful empanillas (spanish style pasties).

The session was made possible with Local Food funding.

Up and Coming Events

Apple Day Saturday 8th October 12-3 pm

For more information about any event please email orchard49@otags.org.uk.

Apples: British to the Core

Horticulturalist Chris Beardshaw uncovers the British contribution to the history of our most iconic fruit. He reveals the 'golden age', when the passion and dedication of Victorian gardeners gave us more varieties than anywhere else in the world. Chris also finds out how the remarkable ingenuity of a small group of 20th century British scientists helped create the modern mass market apple.

If you hurry you can watch the programme on iplayer

What is in it for me?

Claire McAllen talks about volunteering on the community orchard

It was back in April 2010 that I first heard about the community orchard when an email arrived out of the blue inviting me to come and help. It later transpired that my details were obtained from the allotment waiting list. I had put my name down the previous autumn. After having my 3rd baby I decided I needed to do something for ‘me’. I wanted to get involved with something that I enjoyed doing and that would get me away from the kids for a little while. I gave up work to take care of the kids and although I love spending time with them I needed to spend some time not being mum just being me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I had never volunteered for anything before and my actual gardening knowledge was limited. The first work day that I attended in May involved lots of digging, it was hard work but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and couldn’t wait for another session so I would pitch up when I had a bit of spare time and needed to get away from nappies and snotty noses. The people I met were great too, really friendly and like minded it was nice to have adult conversations.

Despite the idea being to get away from the kids my teenage daughter, Ayla came along for one of the work days. Ayla is a girl whose idea of exercise is playing Pokemon on her Nintendo DS. I was quite surprised when she asked to join in, but even more surprised when she told me how much she had enjoyed herself! Saying that, ‘It was good exercise and really quite fun’.

Volunteering is very enjoyable and rewarding, getting away from it all for an afternoon, getting some exercise and making lots of new friends in the process. I have been lucky enough to get an allotment plot. Helping at the orchard has meant that I had a realistic expectation of the level of work involved initially with a new allotment.

The sight of a plot waist deep in weeds and various bits of debris can be very disheartening to any new ‘allotmenteer’ but not me! It was a case of here’s my spade let’s get dug in! I will still be helping out at the community orchard and can't wait to get planting, pruning and pleaching, and of course eventually eating scrummy apples!