Keeping well

BY MANDY EVANS

It's hard to get much done indoors when the weathers nice outside. This summer has been so variable, it's not only our plants that have to make the most of the warm weather before it fades into yet another cool weather pattern.

But, this is the time of year when a lot of vegetables and fruit are ready to be pickled and preserved.

Often these tasks are best undertaken at a time of day when you can open the house up, rather than just before you head off to work, or go to bed. There can't be many people in the world who particularly like the smell of vinegar permeating the house after a pickling session. I'm not overfond of it either, but it's somehow easier to deal with when you're the one who's cooking with it.

We still have quite a few jams and jellies from last season, and we've decided to cut down the amount of wine we make this year or we'll be well-pickled ourselves, so whenever I get the urge to stock the cupboards this season I'll focus on pickles and chutneys.

I've already tried making a range of chutneys and feijoa is a firm favourite. Another is red currant chutney. I'm keen to recreate a rhubarb and ginger chutney I tasted last year and the way the rhubarb is growing, there's plenty of material to experiment with.

As for pickles, gherkins and garlic are a given; both are easy-care crops to grow and easy to pickle. So far this season though my firm favourite in the pickle stakes has been pickled peppers. I was so impressed by the flavour of the jar a friend gave me to try that I had to make some myself, using her recipe.

However, here I have a confession. While my pickled peppers were successful, the sweet bell peppers I used weren't actually mine; they came from a local market.

With the exception of chilli peppers, which I grew so successfully a couple of years ago that we're still using the dried chillis harvested from those plants, I haven't had much luck growing members of the capsicum family here.

One year, while living in our caravan, I planted a couple of sweet bell peppers in a mussel float and they produced a large crop. When we lived at Rarangi, I even pruned back my flourishing bell peppers, dropped the cold frame over them during winter, and they cropped again the next season.

Here, I've tried to grow capsicums of all kinds both in the tunnel house and the main garden, but for various reasons the plants have sulked and died.

This year I'm providing them with a slightly harsher, dryer environment more similar to how we've grown them in the past.

I've planted several varieties of sweet bell peppers and a couple of chilli plants in a side garden that has less fertile soil. While I do have an irrigation system there, the soil is more free-draining than the main garden beds.

So far so good; while we're not eating our own peppers yet, there are quite a few coming on, and yesterday I noticed a couple of green chillis that are almost ready.

I'm hoping for a bumper crop of chillis this year as I'm keen to try making chilli sauce.

I learned a handy tip recently from a woman who's been growing and cooking with chillis for years  to tell if a chilli is ripe, squeeze it gently. If it feels solid, it's ready; if it's a bit squashy and hollow, leave it on the plant a bit longer.

If I leave the chillis on the plant for long enough, they'll eventually turn red. I'll do this with some, but they are hotter when green, and I like a bit of heat when cooking spicy meals.

I also pickled large Japanese radishes called daikon last season. They tasted great, but unfortunately the smell when you opened a lunchbox containing a serving of pickled daikon was of the type that made you look around for a convenient dog to blame, which is a little embarrassing when at work.

This season's weather seems to be suited to radish growing though so I'm going to try again. I've found a different recipe online for pickled radishes and another for radish relish. Interestingly, the writer assures another member of the online recipe forum that the finished product smells of nothing stronger than the pickling mixture.

I've just made a batch, but this time, my pickled radishes will have to pass a stringent odour test at home before they get as far as my lunchbox at work.

- The Marlborough Express