Storing the Harvest and Raising the Greenhouse

Storing the Harvest

Having come home with a few bits from the plot on Tuesday evening, Wednesday was the day when the house became a food preparation factory!


Val chopped French and Runner beans, I blanched and she bagged them then dropped into the freezer.


Carted the pumpkins through to the back and put them on the table to cure in the sun – not a shabby collection if I do say it myself! I took them home because I didn’t want them being stolen like last year’s squash. This was justified as someone has sawn through the lock chain and tried to get the lock off the gate at the site.


Then we started on the sweetcorn. This involves stripping the leaves off the cobs; dropping into large pans of boiling water then bowls of cold water and removing the kernels with a sharp knife before bagging and freezing. Slight diversion to put a plaster on a finger while dancing around cursing my clumsiness!


16 bags (a bag being a good portion for two) into the upstairs freezer. Being as it was approaching 10pm we left the rest for Thursday evening. Another 40 bags went up and we’ve still got cobs on the plot to go.


This is giving us a bit of a problem; the freezers are just about full. We have an upright freezer in the garage, a fridge freezer in the kitchen and a small chest freezer in the back bedroom.


We’re 95% self sufficient in vegetables (peas were a failure and we will probably run out of onions and garlic) but I intended to build a dryer to store some of the produce. Talking of things I intended to do but haven’t got around to yet.


Greenhouse Raising


Larry called me on Friday morning and suggested (as in ordered) that I get down to the site and we start putting up the greenhouse. Down to the plot at 11am and we made a good start with just a few false starts, taking apart, realising this bit actually went there not here etc. Took a half hour lunch break and then back to it until 5pm when Larry had to go.


Johnny from plot 28 came on the scene and his engineering skills were well utilised. I freely admit to being a klutz with mechanical things, but Johnny just stares at it for a minute then without seeming haste does the right thing first time.


By 7pm I was dying of thirst and we needed some WD40 so I nipped home and returned with Val and some beer, plus some juice for the young lady from plot 28. We settled down for a drink, joined by Poshbins and admired the greenhouse frame, which is nearly finished.


I would have claimed to have done it all by myself but Poshbins threatened to expose the truth on the forums!


I’ve still got a couple of roof struts, one upright and a window to fit, then we can start glazing the house. As they were threatening winds today, Saturday, and the promised rain has arrived, I put some heavy bits of wood on the frame to hold it down.


Emptied the bags of sweetcorn leaves and cobs into the compost bins and we headed for home at 8.30pm in the near dark.

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