Interesting plants both near & far, 'Sisu' & produce preserved in jars.🌱
A changeable June has brought welcome rain but, much cooler temps. End of May, heading into June is probably my favourite transition in the garden. At the front end of the May, it can be quite changeable weatherwise but, by halfway in when the cuckoo arrives, you start seeing some good indications of what's to come of the growing season! I could see it was going to be a big fruit year. Apples, gages, cherries, plums & even pears were all blossoming like mad so will be interesting to see how it unfolds. My honeyberries had already fruited by mid-May and will be ripe soon. A good trick to make certain honeyberries get pollinated so early in spring is to plant them next to a willow variety with giant catkins which are a favourite for the early pollinators.
May & early June is also the best month for spotting plants as the leaves have just flushed on the trees. Later in the year it gets more difficult once everything is lush & in full leaf. Last year, I spent quite a bit of time in spring & early summer on a few botanical jaunts around the county. Some are spots I visit annually just to have a look at changes in certain plants/trees or just to get a look at what's going on in the general habitat around them. Caithness has a few oddities, either rare plants for the British mainland or rare for Caithness. Either way, its fun to go out and try to find ones mentioned in old books or papers & to look for new ones.
Perhaps one of the most famous of the rare oddities of Caithness is Northern Holy Grass or Sweet Grass (Hierochloe odorata). Once thought to be extinct in Britain until Robert Dick rediscovered it growing along the banks of the River Thurso in 1854. A book about him written partly from his journals & letters tells you exactly where you can find it & even when to go look for it. Almost 200 years later, its still growing in the same spots.
Another fairly scarce plant for both Caithness & the whole of the UK is Nordic currant (Ribes spicatum). Its a native plant & very closely related to Red Currant (Ribes rubrum). I've only seen it in two locations in the county. At one site its more prevalent but, at the other I know of only one specimen and last year it was nearly taken out when a river side path was improved and a load of detritus from the works was dumped next to it. I don't hold out much hope for it anyways as the surrounding trees & shrubs are putting it in quite deep shade nowadays. This one is probably so scarce as it isn't well known for self-propagation by seed as it tends to grow by clone of itself & is probably self-incompatible therefore a single specimen is unlikely to produce viable seed. From a single cutting quite a few years ago, I've managed to multiply this species fairly quickly. The fruit isn't too different from red currant & quite tasty.
The last oddity I'll cover is one of my favourites. I think its the only specimen in Caithness. I know of a few others in Sutherland & Ross-shire but, even there its scarce. Rock (or Crag) Whitebeam (Sorbus rupicola). It couldn't possibly be in a more precarious position growing out of the cliff face of a steep outcrop of rock. Hence its common name, that is its favoured habitat. Ideal since no sheep nor deer can get at it enough to do it much damage. This is another tree that if you wish to easily spot it, doing so in May is the easiest as when the leaves first flush the white felted underside of the leaves makes it stand out from other trees. Later in the season, its leaves look a much darker green & harder to spot. Do you know of another specimen in the county?
I noticed in my camera roll, the day before I took the above photo, I stumbled across a new species of mushroom growing wild on the croft in a section of birch wood that was planted about 16 years ago.
Another wild croft regular now is Wood Blewits (Lepista nuda). They appeared of their own volition a few years back & are becoming more plentiful every season.
Another shocker I discovered on the croft last year was sweet chestnuts! This was a first and long may it continue. Just a few years back we had noticed this particular sweet chestnut tree growing really well but, we had to cut back some neighbouring alders that were beginning to crowd it. I see lots of flowers on it again this year so, may produce a few more nuts than the handful from last season.
I've now planted some named varieties of walnut in winter 22/23. It will be very interesting to see what those do in coming years. This spring was also the first spring I really recognised how well cherry trees do here. Our cherry trees were laden with blossoms all over the croft these past few weeks & fruit now setting. The trick is to be able to harvest any before the birds feast on them all. Will be trying some reflective tape on a few this year to keep the birds away during ripening. Seeing how well the cherries are doing has put me in mind to experiment growing some bush cherries now as well. 🍒
Later in autumn, I had a trip to SE Asia for several weeks and from the perspective of someone who's always preoccupied by interesting plants, I may as well been dropped off onto another planet where I could barely identify anything recognisable. 😂 Perhaps even more interesting for me was from the ethnobotanical angle & learning how people utilise these local plants in day to day life - especially culinary uses. A few colourful examples..
Turned out to be an adventurous year & spent a bit of time in Morocco as well. Here there was some more familiar items on the menu ..
Besides all the numerous combinations of tagine & fresh fish & seafood in the land of cats & Gnaoua music, the breakfasts are divine & served late just how I like it.
By the time we arrived back from adventures there were lots of trees to plant & get out of pots & it was time to be sowing veg seeds and taking the last of the hardwood cuttings! Safe to say I've been run off my feet since. 😊 I like to start off with an “angle” for the garden. Some years, I concentrate on medicinal herbs or seed saving or wild flowers, fruit, mushroom cultivation or lots of salad stuffs. I was fairly certain already last autumn, my focus would be preservation. There is that much coming in fruit & veg wise now I knew I needed to experiment more with preserving it with various methods.
Canning in my opinion is the best preservation method. No refrigeration, freezing or electricity required. I grew up in a family of multi-generational canners from a farming background - serious amounts of canning was done & was just a standard method of preservation. My grandmothers fed all their children on home grown/reared, canned goods all through the late 1930’s-60’s. I should have paid more attention to the process when I was young. I remember thinking at the time, it was a bit “old-fashioned”. Even my parents started to freeze more & can less going into the 80’s. We then had a separate big freezer that held all the wild game, mostly venison & the occasional bear my dad processed every year with a bit of canning yet of home garden produce.
Life was quite a bit different where I grew up than here. It was a heavily forested, remote, sparsely populated area with long, (very) cold winters & a strong influence of traditional Finnish diaspora culture & that included the pervasive embodiment of ‘sisu’ in the character of all the people. It didn't matter if you happened to be of Finnish descent like most or not either. Sisu wasn't an optional mindset you might just choose to embrace, more of a requirement for survival & happiness. You needed sisu to be able to maneuver through any hardships that may be presented by the 200-400 inches of snow that fell every year between October - April & where the average high temp in January was -7°C. If you had the sisu, you just considered those perfect conditions you looked forward to as summer came to a close, in anticipation of spending plenty of time outdoors partaking in a range fun activities like snowshoeing, nordic & alpine skiing, snowmobiling & ice skating that we enjoyed all winter long.
This concept of sisu was even reinforced at school where we were equipped with skills to see us through life’s challenges living in the woods. In a rite of passage at 11-12 years old, it was part of your schooling to attend a week long “camp” where amongst other skills & activities, the local police came in to teach firearm handling/safety, both rifle & shotgun & you achieved a “hunter's safety education certificate” & then you were eligible for a deer licence. You also were taught outboard motor boat handling at the camp as well as archery, orienteering, fire building & other “bushcraft” skills like how to properly hang your food in the trees whilst camping to keep the bears out of your tent. There was even a multi-stage rope course built high in the trees you had to negotiate. And if you were afraid of heights? Well, tough luck kid, you were up there until you figured out how to get to the very end - which was a zipline through the trees and back down to the ground. Turns out that the fading light of daytime, hunger & mosquitos were fairly good motivators to shake off any residual fear of heights the last few stragglers looming in the treetops might have had. That was sisu. Then at 17, you would then go volunteer at the same camp mentoring the younger ones attending & helping to run the workings of the camp.
Like the “tattie holidays” here, we had several days off of school every year at the start of the regular deer season, November 15th, which was seen as a type of public holiday so that the young lads could go out with their fathers to the hunting camps out in the woods & fill their deer tags. The local radio stations even hosted a special show in the evenings all through the 2 week season providing updates of how the collective hunt was progressing. By the end of November, there was hardly a house you could go past that didn't have a deer or two hanging from their clothes line posts waiting for processing. This was purely subsistence hunting & fishing, not merely a hobby; it was a way of life for everyone there. So, food processing & preservation skills were all a very important part of that way of life as well.
I realised a bit later in life, the exceptional quality of product that results from the canning process & so decided to revisit, learn & utilise those old techniques.
For example, the beef stew above, whilst the meat is seared before packing the jars, the rest of the veg is added raw packed then topped up with broth & a touch of wine. During the processing of jars, the vegetables cook sort of sous vide style in the jar & the result is a fully infused, extremely flavourful meal with the vegetables perfectly cooked.
Same can be said of bean dishes. Dried beans like pintos or black turtle added to the jar with lots of spices, chilli paste, garlic & broth & the beans cook perfectly in the jar & turn out infused with flavour in a way that cannot be replicated in a pressure cooker or a normal pot of beans. Its a bit difficult to describe but, the quality of the product is unmatched with the big bonus that its on the shelf and ready to use for a quick & nutritious meal.
For that quality, you've got a bit of an expense outlay at the beginning on decent jars which can be reused over & over of course + sealing lids but, after that, very little equipment is required. Just a large pot for processing jars if you use traditional European canning methods & a food grade quality ph meter if you plan to go off piste from standard canning recipes.
People unfamiliar with canning give me a bit of sideways look when I talk about canning & always ask how long it lasts stored on the shelf. 😊 How long does a tin of soup or beans last? Well, that's how long canned goods last if processed correctly.
What about garden produce? Last year I grew so many cucumbers, I canned 30 pint jars of pickles infused with aronia fruit & shallots & garlic I grew. 30 jars will last us for 2 years so no need to grow cucumbers this year. This year I'm growing lots of tromboncino squash & will have enough to can to last for 2 years & so on. Outside, I'm trying to grow enough peas to can enough ½ pint jars of peas to last for 2 years. Potatoes can also be canned. Grated for making hash browns, chipped for making chips, wedges or whole baby new potatoes. Cabbage & carrot can be grated and canned in a brine for ready prepped coleslaw. Beets, carrots as well etc.
Canning is a great way to store shelf stable homemade “ready meals" too. Those days when you're too busy or just can't be bothered cooking, you can just open up a jar to heat up & have a healthy meal in minutes. I plan to can some jars of samosa filling too of cubed potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger & peas and all the spices in 1 litre jars. Then ample meals in jars with more produce as its harvested - soups, stews, curries, pasta sauce etc. When you're done processing all of that you may as well make broth from the veggie scraps & can that for later use too. 😊
Fruits will be made into jams, chutneys, apple crumble filling, rhubarb sauce, fruit butters, stuffed gages etc.
Hoping you are all having a grand growing season thus far! Leave me a comment of your favourite harvest preservation methods. 👍
Excellent read.
I'm going to give canning a go 💚
Inspiring and interesting read thank you! Never knew you could can so much, will definitely give it a go. Have only tried syrups, jams and drying so excited to try some new things. Did I read that right - bear!?