- Today is 1st of February,
so we're halfway through the winter.
And I'm showing you some ways of keeping your produce
for longer so that you can enjoy eating it
right through towards the end of the winter,
maybe even a bit beyond.
And there's many examples here
of vegetables that we've harvested
in the preceding autumn, early winter, winter.
And let's have a look and see what there is.
One of the most winter-hearty ones,
actually these are still out in the garden mostly,
but I've harvested parsnips also.
You can dig out any time up to a month or two,
even three actually, before you need them.
And then with root vegetables,
it's very easy to wash them when you've just harvested.
So I wash the soil and compost off straight away.
And they've just been sitting in this shed
for about two weeks.
And so that one actually was nibbled
by rabbit or rat in the garden,
but not in here fortunately.
You can just see they're starting to shoot there.
And if you see root vegetables starting to shoot,
that's a good sign.
For example here we have some carrots
that we gathered from the bed last late November.
So they'd been in here all of December, all of January,
just about nine weeks.
And look at the growth on them.
Don't be off-put by that.
It's a sign that the root is alive and healthy.
So to prepare these for table,
you would just need to snap that off and then wash them.
So if you have just something to wash them in, off you go.
And then beetroot, all these vegetables here,
I've got them just in crates.
And the beetroot is doing the same thing.
This one's actually a whitened pink beetroot,
and it's showing that with its nice, pink shoots
which you could eat in salad actually.
And again, it would be just a question
of taking off the shoots before using the actual beetroot.
You can see some little hairs on the roots.
It's all a good sign.
This shed is ambient temperature plus a bit
or minus a bit on warm days.
So it's a building with two brick wall.
It's nothing fancy, it's just added onto my house.
And it'll keep most frost out, but not below...
If the temperature outside goes down
to about minus 10, minus 12,
it would freeze in here.
But mostly in our climate, we don't get that.
So the vegetables in here store very nicely there.
Another beetroot I grow is golden beetroot.
And these were actually harvested,
and then I washed them.
So that's been stored as a clean beetroot.
And it actually hasn't compromised
it's keeping quality partly because it's big,
and large roots store really well
'cause they're bigger and moister.
It is quite damp air in here,
so obviously that helps as well.
But it's a bit of a myth that sometimes people will say
the large roots go woody.
If they're well grown, compost in rich soil, no dig,
you can't go wrong really.
And these big beetroots taste great,
and they're quite tender.
Likewise kohlrabi, here's a lovely winter vegetable.
So these I picked just before a first hard frost
in very late November, early December
when it went down to minus six centigrade,
20 Fahrenheit, so cold.
And I was afraid that would kill them,
but actually I left one or two out
as an experiment and they survived.
So these you've got options in moderate frost
of keeping them outside.
But this one's been in the shed for nine weeks,
and I left a few leaves on actually.
They're starting to grow a bit as well,
new ones in the middle.
But that's a lovely, healthy root, very sweet to eat.
Lovely sauteed in butter.
And then we have right kohlrabi as well.
You can see the sweet little new leaves there
as it's starting to grow,
but not too much.
So most of the goodness is still stored in that root.
Pretty, tasty, and great food for late winter.
So no refrigeration used here or anything like that.
Some things are in sacks so they keep a bit fresher.
And in the case of potatoes, to keep light off.
That's a Sarpo potato which we harvested last August.
So that's been in that sack in here five months.
And here we have estima white potato harvested last July.
So look how little it's actually sprouted in all that time
that it's been just in a sack in the shed.
Here's an interesting one, cabbage.
These cabbage I harvested last October.
So this was late October, so that's three months ago.
For three whole months,
these cabbage have be sitting here just in a crate.
They're are beautiful variety called filderkraut
which we planted on the solstice
actually after clearing broad beans.
And what you can do
is this rather dire-looking cabbage heart
is actually still has a lot of nice leaves underneath,
underneath the rotting leaves.
The rotting all being well takes place from the outside.
And then you get into something very edible.
You can see that in just taking off four leaves,
maybe a little bit of knife work on that tip there
and a bit around the edges,
but you've ended up for all that, for very little work,
the cabbage is cut in the autumn.
Just stored in a crate.
I find it's better not to cover it with anything
'cause that minimizes fungal growth,
and that that's keeping nicely.
And then we have another root vegetable
here which is solaria,
and there's two ways you can do these really.
One would be there I left
quite a bit of compost on the root,
and that's helping to keep it moist.
And actually that just by comparison,
there's one that I trimmed a bit more at harvest time
which was in November.
So you can see what you're getting down to.
And also if I just take a bit more off now,
you can see what a nice root is in there.
I'll just trim off a bit
of that yellow and soily stuff on top.
And you're getting down towards into
the very nice celeriac heart of the root.
And these by the way will keep until April.
They store really well without doing any extra growth.
And last root vegetables here is a swede.
It's not the nicest looking swede it must be said.
But that's thanks to (indistinct)
which eats out the growing point,
and then you get multiple growth points on the swede.
Again though you can see it's a healthy root
'cause it's trying to grow it.
It hasn't grown too much.
That's been in there since last November as well.
And leeks I want to show you because...
Not because I've stored them a long time,
but just because you could store these.
I just pulled these from the garden,
and there a multi-sewn module clump
which we planted last July.
And so that's been in the ground since then growing,
and I've just pulled it up.
And if you were in a really frosty part of the world
and you get a moss bed in winter,
and you could pull some leeks
and just bring them indoors to use.
Just keep them like that in a box
or just anywhere really, bucket.
And then when you're ready to go to eat them,
cut off the roots and trim them
and you have your vegetable to eat.
And I've almost finished,
but I'll just quickly show you
a couple of slightly unusual things.
One is artichoke and these are some Jerusalem artichokes
that I dug up last December
because the rats were starting to get interested.
And this shows you what happens
or can happen when you wash vegetables before storing them
and just being in the sack.
So that's an example of something
not working so well, the moldiness.
There's still good roots to eat there.
But on the whole I would say if you've got the choice,
the safest way to store root vegetables
is like this with a bit of soil and compost on, not a lot.
And then you can clean that off
when you're ready to eat them,
and they will keep.
These carrots, 1st of February now.
These carrots will keep for at least two months.
So from one harvest we've had
four and probably five months of carrot eating.
There's quite a few vegetables
which very conveniently one can store in the house
because they actually keep better
when they are surrounded by dry air.
It doesn't have to be warm,
but actually room temperature's convenient
because most houses have room-temperature air
which by default is a bit dryer than what's outside.
So for example these onions,
you can see how nice and ready they are
and really hard and firm.
They've been in here in the conservatory.
So we're in a house conservatory where the temperature
is below 20 degrees all winter, between 10 and 20.
That's 50 to 70 Fahrenheit.
And yeah, that's very suitable for onions.
So these onions were harvested last August,
five, six months ago.
And they should keep for another couple of months yet
before they will think of sprouting.
And squashes, there's a nice range along here.
Different ones, crown prince,
marina, (indistinct), monkey nut.
And they likewise keep very well when it's warm and dry
'cause it means you get less rot on the skin.
There is a bit starting to happen,
I just spotted one down here for example.
That's the classic thing you just wanna keep an eye out for.
And so if I see one like that,
that's one that we'll use as soon as possible.
And the other ones could keep until early April,
so for another couple of months.
And chilies, another possibility.
So these were harvested late around Christmas time.
And you could put these on a thread of cotton
hung in the window to dry.
The little ones here actually are going
pretty dry just from being in a aerated tray.
And then you can also hang things up.
So we've got garlic in here
and onions which are hanging in little bunches.
This room therefore is quite full of food.
And as well as storing it, well,
it means that one has the food right to hand
and it's very pretty to look at.
A last little look at storing fruit
'cause there's a lot of misconceptions about this
and it's quite easy actually.
These are apples which I harvested here last October.
And I simply put them in boxes and keep them in the garage.
Now in this climate, that's fine.
They do freeze a bit in there,
and that's okay for apples.
And they're not cold all the time.
So sometimes outdoors, it's 10 degrees, 50 Fahrenheit.
But you can see how well they've kept.
It's like that's Johnny gold harvested last October.
And it's been in a box, it's touching other apples.
Sometimes it's good to have them
all together in a box where you can even close the lid
to keep them a bit more humid.
If you put apples on a rack or separate from each other,
they can shrivel a bit 'cause they dry.
You also want to make sure you've got apples
of the right variety for storing.
This one's called winter gem.
So it's beautiful now,
but it was not nice to eat in the autumn
because it ripens slowly over the winter.
So special winter apples are not what you'd want to eat
in October, November, or even at Christmas.
And then there's an interesting one here called Tentation
which is one half golden delicious.
which you can see I think.
Nice golden color and actually quite nice flavor.
More sweetness than flavor if truth be told,
but it does keep really well.
So here we are 1st of February, apple picked October,
and it's eating very nicely.
It's been simply kept in a box outside.
No frills, no fuss, yum.