Abundance

'Tis the season for tomatoes tra la la la la, la la la la! Making sauce, enjoy the harvest tra la la la la, la la la la!! Yes christmas is over and sorry Mr Em for singing a christmas tune when it's not december but it's the first thing that came to mind as Mr Le and I were in our garden last night after the kids were in bed. A gorgeous summer evening when the sky was pink and the chooks were enjoying their little jaunt in the vegie patch. We tidied our rampant tomato plants that were a massive tangle of vine and fruit.

Their scent so heady I could smell it on my hands when I finally went to bed. As we were lifting the vines high above our head we found masses of fruit just gasping for some sunshine so we strung up twine for them to hold on to and cleared away dying leaves. This years harvest has been abundant where as last year we had 10 plants and not one tomato, not a single one. So for the last few weeks we have been bottling passata, making tomato chutney, rhubarb chutney, plum and blackberry jam and eating summery fresh tomato and basil salad before autumn comes and takes them away. I love preserving. It's homey and comforting, it's good home economics and it's a wonderful way to pull a little bit of summer out of the cupboard in the depths of winter. Just look at these colours. Heirloom tomatoes, a gift from a friend.

 And rhubarb from Em's garden

And of course it works the other way around too. We make pumpkin chutney, picalilli pickle and preserved lemons in autumn. Quince paste, blood orange marmalade and beetroot pickle in winter. We don't preserve alot in spring as everything is so fresh and green that it goes down the hatch first. Well, at least what the 4 girls leave for us. Which we don't mind what they eat as they leave us little oval treasures each day- it's a perfect trade.