Though we're not harvesting a lot at the moment, I've started preserving a few things, most notably fruit: cherries, strawberries and raspberries have all gone in the freezer. We got a bigger freezer for free from the neighbors this past winter and I've got about six or seven bags of frozen fruit in it (though all but one bag of strawberries we picked at a local farm). I think once the red raspberries are finally finished at the allotment--they're done at home--I'll make some jam with them; we're still picking a handful every day or two.
I've also fired up the dehydrator for the first time in a few months; I made some strawberry chips and have started on the fig harvest with the first three ripe figs. To fill up the rest of the trays while those figs slowly dry, I've been picking nasturtium leaves; they work well in stews and casseroles as they aren't spicy after cooking but add a nice tang--and they dry within a few hours.
I tried to brine some chard stems to use as a salty/sour addition to salads but am not particularly enamored with the result. Not nasty, but just sort of bland. We generally eat the stems along with the chard, even if we eat them as salad leaves so at least I didn't do a very big batch. Oh well.
Speaking of brining, we've been given two big cucumbers from fellow allotmenteers (so far) and I'm considering making pickle spears with one of them. May they be the first of many, as my own cucumber seedlings withered and died before I even got the chance to plant them out.
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