If preserving is your thing, or even if it's not, it's a great way to keep things for a time when life isn't so busy or you have enough to do something with. This season, I managed to freeze corn, rhubarb, tomatoes, plums and peaches, dried peppermint for tea, oregano, and thyme. I don't bother drying things that will keep growing throughout winter if protected, like parsley or coriander, or chives.

After a bumper crop of small but delicious bright yellow peaches from a tree I grew from seed, and it's second year no less, I had almost 20kg of peaches this year to process. After the first dozen jars were bottled, I decided to go the easier route of peeling, removing the stone and just freezing. After my third session, it became wiping off the fluff, cutting it in half to remove the stone and throwing it into a freezer bag. I have four and a half bags of peaches in the freezer each weighing 3 to 4 kgs. The ones with the fur will be used for chutney later on.

If your fruit trees are finished, now is a great time to prune. Let me know if you would like some help. I am available for 1:1 coaching for this throughout February and March.

If you are searching for a good peach chutney, I like Digby Law's Pickles and Chutney's book for his recipe. This chutney goes well on a pizza with smoked chicken, spinach or even a bit of capsicum and camembert cheese. You can either use it as the base sauce (it does get a little thin with heat) or pour it over just before serving. Absolutely delicious.

When I first started preserving I would preserve anything and everything. One year I remember preserving watermelon rind, which is a thing, but I decided never to do it again, as I couldn't figure out ways to use it and it sat in the cupboard collecting dust. For the peach chutney, I'll often add a spoonful into sausage rolls, or a casserole to balance the flavours.

My lesson was only to preserve the things I would use. That's my advice to you. Keep it simple, and preserve only the things you will use. Corn when cheap or you grow it abundantly, herbs that you buy dried, fruit you've grown for cakes and muffins etc. Tomatoes are a given. We use them in so many things. But I also make tomato salsa, which is delicious on anything Mexican-based for meals.

Here's my favourite recipe https://www.thekiwicountrygirl.com/homemade-tomato-salsa.../. My little tweak to this is instead of adding tomato puree, I add a tablespoon or two of tomato paste. It helps to make it thicker and a little more like the bought stuff but it tastes 1000% better! If you don't like it spicy, reduce the amount of jalapenos and add more capsicum.

Lastly, with tomatoes, I used to use Annabel Langbein's Harvest Sauce, https://www.langbein.com/recipes/harvest-tomato-sauce which is delicious and a really great way to use up excesses of anything in your garden including zucchini, capsicum and herbs or anything in the fridge which is looking a little soft. This can also be frozen or bottled for future use. I use this for soup bases, pasta sauces, pizza sauce, or added to casseroles etc. I will easily make 30 plus jars per year, which may seem excessive, but if you use a jar a week, then it will only last 30 weeks and you will run out before tomatoes are ready and in season again.

For all my preserving I use the overflow method. I'm yet to try the canning method, mainly because the jars I use mostly, aren't suited to that method.We have plenty of events coming, and we would love you to join us!