Weed control and Jam...

It's been a while since I last posted and there has been plenty going on. I've been getting into the garden, mowing the lawn and making jam.

I love my lawn. Well not exactly love, but I like a lawn I can walk on barefoot, without weeds, buffalo/kikuyu grass and prickles. So, most years at the start of summer I've sprayed with Weed'n'Feed or something that promises to destroy all weeds. A couple of weeks later I'd mow and compost the clippings. Then Carolyn suggested I find out if composting sprayed lawn is actually safe.

SO I got on the Yates website and various others and was surprised at what I found out. The best information I found, all in one place was at the Teraviva web site. Their site is very informative, and they have a tremendous pdf document with details titled "Which Weedkiller to use in Home Gardens".

I discovered that my lawn cuttings shouldn't be used for at least 3 mowings. Some poisons make the lawn cuttings unavailable for 6 months. That's a long time. I could have collected my cuttings and dumped them in the bin, but I don't like compostables going into landfills. As they break down, they mix with a lot of other chemicals, metals etc and make a pretty toxic sludge. Also, landfills have to pay for the methane they produce, and garden waste produces a bit.

So, I mowed the cuttings into the lawn, They rotted down and were gone within a week, and I suppose now either the few worms that live in my sandy soil are now glowing green and growing extra heads, or they are fine and the chemicals are breaking down.

I've also been making jam. I've got a lot of raspberries, black and red currents and strawberries growing at the moment. I tend to pick them every few days and freeze them in zip-lock bags until I have several bags. There is also a plum tree nearby that we've been told we can have some plums off. Carolyn and the kids have picked a couple of super-market bags full. I've been busy picking the fruit and jamming it. I also made some Plum sauce (The Edmonds cook book has a great recipe).

Most of my jam recipes basically involve heating the fruit until it boils, then adding the same weight of sugar as the fruit and boiling it flat out until it looks like it will set in the jars. Black current jam gets 1/2 the weight of fruit added in water (eg 1.2kilos of black currants gets 600ml of water added). Old jam and sauce jars are heated in the oven and the lids boiled in a pan, then the fruit poured into the jars, lids screwed on quickly and then sit back and wait for the satisfying pop sound of the lids settling.

And later, I get to enjoy some yummy jam. The kids refer to it as 'Daddy-Jam'.