At the last meeting of the Club the speaker was Sally Nex and she has ‘form’ for being an enthusiast. On this occasion the title of her offering was ‘Bust the Glut’ and, interestingly, her subject was not how to grow the best flowers, fruit and vegetables but what to do with them when they all appear at once! In this warm and dry summer this has been a problem with some fruit production being most impressive even with such a lack of rainfall. Plums have been getting out of hand. Branches have been breaking under the weight of the fruit and wasps have had a great time in the cidery insides of apples. (Do drunken wasps sound slurred to their more sober colleagues?).
Successional sowing was suggested as a way of avoiding the proud but pointless achievement of having 50 lettuces in peak condition at the same time! Yet, as we all may know, such organisation in our gardening lives is difficult to achieve. Life is busy and even putting a label on pots can often prove to be just too much of an effort. When, despite best efforts to the contrary, a glut has appeared, effective ways of storing the produce would probably be familiar to our forebears who lived through World War II. Jams, pickles, cordials, bottling and freezing were all discussed and useful tips given. Ms. Nex was good and enthused her audience.
