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Beat the glut!

Joyce Russell shares strategies for managing your harvest and converting the surplus into stores for the courgette-free months.

Beat the Glut!
Courgettes, tomatoes, runner beans and more courgettes! Yes, it’s that time of year, when the harvest stacks up in such abundance that at times you may wish for less healthy and productive plants. Of course you can give the surplus to friends and neighbours, or consign it to the compost heap if you are completely overwhelmed, but do bear in mind that leaner months are only just around the corner. It is well worth laying down a store of summer and autumn crops to make the long months of winter greens a little more exciting.

Going by the book?

There are a lot of recipes out there. There are a lot of would-be picklers and preservers, too. That means a whole gamut of possibilities for what any individual might consider a great success, or a miserable failure.
A good recipe book is a fine starting point, and many people produce identical pickles year after year. I just can’t resist tweaking and experimenting. If I don’t like one ingredient, I’ll put something else in instead. Some years everything is spiced up with extra chilli, and another year sugar gets cut down to a minimum. Of course there are failures as well as successes, but I would look on any recipe as a starting point – experimentation is part of the fun.

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Plan crop rotation

A few tips

1 If a friend makes a preserve that you like, ask for the recipe. Write it down at the time and try to get as many specific facts as possible. Best of all, watch them make it and then go home to do the same.

2 Compile your own collection of pickle and jam recipes that are perfectly to your taste. Leave space to add comments when the jars are opened, so you can refine further batches in future years. You might counteract a dull chutney by adding some fresh chillies one year, and may then make a note to add fewer in future!

3 Buy a couple of good books on pickle- and jam-making, and then feel free to adapt the recipes to suit your own taste, or the ingredients you have to hand... just as long as you make notes for next year.

4 Always use fresh fruit and vegetables that are in good condition. A punnet of blackcurrants that are soft, sticky and starting to grow mould in places will not suddenly transform into exquisitely flavoured jam.

5 Always taste what you have made before you put it into jars. The flavour will of course mature and develop after a few weeks in storage, but if it tastes horrid going into the jar, it is unlikely that time will improve it. You can always add more spice, salt or sweetener. Maybe a dash more vinegar is needed, or a clove or two of garlic?


A warning note

Heat, salt, vinegar, sugar and the exclusion of air are used to kill or exclude micro-organisms and hence preserve the fruit or vegetables. If you cut back significantly on any of these factors, moulds, yeasts and bacteria may survive and proliferate. Don’t eat any preserve that smells strange, or is fermenting, mouldy or discoloured.


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No recipe is sacrosanct! Take a small amount from the pan and experiment on that if you don’t want to risk the whole batch. Obviously you can’t take out the chilli or salt if you’ve added too much, though a few pieces of raw potato can work wonders on the latter. Let them cook in the mixture and then discard them; they will have absorbed a lot of salt. You can also add in a bit more apple, pumpkin, or courgette... all are great at providing bulk and soaking up flavour.

6 Don’t put anything into a jar until you actually like the taste or can imagine how the flavour will develop to suit you.

7 Avoid iron, brass or copper pans for making pickles. Stainless steel is the best option. Use jars with plastic lids, or metal lids that are coated with a plastic layer on the inside. Vinegar will react with metal lids and spoil the pickle.

8 Sterilise all jars and lids before using them.

9 Keep all pickles and chutneys in a cool dark place. Anything with a limited shelf life, like pepperonata or pesto, should be kept in the fridge.

10 My approach with soft fruit is to stick it in the freezer and only bring it out to make jams, jellies and preserves once the rush has died down. I won’t include soft fruit recipes here – there’s far too much on the vegetable front to be going on with!
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