Each summer in Gippsland, we all have too many zucchinis growing in our veggie patches. 

If you visit Jacican for a preserving cooking class over the summer Zucchini Bread and Butter pickles may be one of the recipes we cook for you to take home!

I have in the past cut all the vegetables for this pickle by hand, but time is short, so now I use the food processor to save time.  You could use a mandolin if you want to risk your fingertips.  Hand cutting the zucchini is fine, but you may not get a uniform thickness.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg Zucchini sliced
• 500 grams of brown onion - peeled and sliced
• 60 grams of salt
• 1 litre vinegar
• 250 grams of sugar
• 25 grams of yellow mustard seeds
• 5 grams of turmeric

Method

Place zucchini and onion in a large non-corrosive bowl.  I use a large plastic bucket that will fit in the fridge. 

Sprinkle with salt and cover with tap water.  Leave in the fridge overnight.

The next day drain very well. 

Place in a large saucepan, add the sugar, mustard seed, turmeric and celery seed. 

Barley cover with vinegar.  Don't worry if you don't use all the vinegar.  Stand for 2 hours.

Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes.

Bottle and seal in hot sterilized jars. I like to drain the cooked zucchini first, then wearing gloves to fill the jars. Once all your jars are full, top with the vinegar mixer. 

This recipe makes six * 250ml jars. 

Enjoy!

Lettuce and Wild Greens ... 

In January the vegetable garden at Jacican is looking wonderful, but maybe a little light on produce. 

Everythings growing, but there's not much to harvest yet!

But there is one thing in abundance, zucchini!

Zucchini, zucchini, zucchini!

Pretty soon there will be tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, all the roots, corn, sunflowers

Each year I grow a year’s supply of tomatoes in the kitchen garden. Usually, it’s three beds each holding 36 plants. After losses, I end up with about 100 tomato plants. All of them have different colours, shapes and sizes.

All the tomatoes I grow, I grow from seed. I start tomato season in July, reviewing my collection of seeds, hunting out new ones to try, purchasing fresh seed. If you don’t get your seeds early, you rush when it’s time for planting

Sometimes around the middle of August, I spend an hour or two planting out the seeds in the glasshouse.

I use a 4 cm square seed raising trays that hold 24 plants. I’m a little bit lazy, so I buy fresh seed raising mix from the Mirboo North nursey. I fill each square with seed raising mix and poke a hole in the mix with a skewer. I then place a couple of seeds in the hole and push back over the dirt.

Now the most important thing … remember to label. Each tomato gets an ice pole stick, with a handwritten label. I use Ice pole sticks, as they last a season, then break down into the soil.

Now water and wait. In about 4 months I’ll have tomatoes.

PS: You can only harvest your own tomatoes at Jacican, as a guest in a Harvest Lunch, when tomatoes are in season. This is usually between February and early May.