Abundance: How to Store and Preserve Your Garden Produce Growing Harvesting Drying Pickling Fermenting Bottling Freezing

by Alys Fowler

Fresh produce are a joy: crunchy lettuce, sun-warmed tomatoes, juicy berries - their flavours are immediate - but a winter of those summer flavours preserved, now that's a feeling of satisfaction. If you are going to truly try and attain a little more self-sufficiency (and save some money at the same time), think about what you can store to get you through the leaner months. Alys takes you through all the different ways of preserving - bottling, drying, fermenting, freezing, pickling, using sugar - with delicious recipes that make the most of your produce. This book is a must for anyone that wants to store and preserve their garden bounty.

Genres: Gardening, Food, Nonfiction, Cooking, Horticulture

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2013

About the author

Alys Fowler trained at the Horticultural Society, the New York Botanical Garden and the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. After finishing her training, she worked as a journalist for the trade magazine, Horticulture Week, and then joined the Gardeners' World team as a horticultural researcher.
Alys is a gardener who loves food. She has an allotment and an urban back garden with two chickens, lots of flowers and plenty of vegetables. Her inspiration for urban gardening comes from her time volunteering in a community garden on the Lower East side in Manhattan, New York City. Much of the ethic, thrift and spirit she encountered there is found in her work today. She is author of several books and writes a weekly column on gardening for the Guardian.

Reviews

[Lyndsey What You Sow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance is the latest offering from Urban Gardening expert and sustainable living guru Alys Fowler. The author of two of my favourite gardening books, The Thrifty Gardener and The Thrifty Forager, Alys is back to teach us how to store and preserve the garden produce we’ve grown ourselves using the techniques of drying, pickling, fermenting, bottling and freezing. Narrowing the gap between growing your own and eating your own, Alys’s book speaks to a whole generation of gardeners who never inherited the skills that came naturally to our grandparents.

The title evokes that wonderful feeling of plenty and the book certainly delivers, leaving you with the immediate desire to pick some vegetables and make them into something special. It reflects a sort of borrowed nostalgia for something which we’ve missed out on, but are aware of from the stories we read as children, as well as a nod to a type of knowledge that has been passed down for centuries and in a generation has almost been lost.

This book is full of ideas, recipes, images and anecdotes, comprising stories from Alys's past and stories she has gathered from other sources, along with tips on growing, harvesting and storing. It serves as a call to action and demonstrates how to become more self-sufficient, to save money, to impress your friends, to enjoy summer flavours during the colder months. For anyone who has questioned their dependence on carbon-heavy, shop-bought produce, the book presents a host of fun, creative and inspiring solutions.

From Japanese pickles to no-sugar raspberry jam and Alys's carrot top pesto, this book has something for everyone. Recipes are presented not as fine cuisine, but as “a shortcut to a better meal”. Yet they sound amazing; Kimchi, tabasco, broad bean falafel, and a range of chutneys along with practical tips to make sure the preparation goes to plan. “Be sensible”, Alys writes, “act cautiously, make small batches and vary them often”. And share, often.

It’s incredibly informative, with information from the history of preservation and the importance of sterilisation to composting, each part scattered with tales like sowed seeds; a friend's mother growing up in an Austrian mountain town, memories of harvest time, the strict teachers teaching Alys to pick apples at the RHS fruit orchards.

Illustrated throughout with bright, luscious photographs of the ingredients, recipes, and a smiling Alys on her allotment and in the kitchen, the book includes a number of useful graphics detailing, amongst other things, a scale of natural pectin levels in fruit. The images of frozen vegetables are enchanting. Filled with scientific sections on how vegetables decay and how fermenting and preserving work, it’s incredibly well laid out and thoughtfully put together.

Since my work with FareShare and Carbon Conversations, I’ve become acutely aware of the importance of reducing my food footprint. Alys is great at sharing the skills you can use to preserve your home grown produce and keep your food footprint low without sounding preachy in any way. She understands the importance of communicating to people with a positive message – anyone who has tried to raise awareness in sceptical friends will appreciate that. So this is a book to share like jam.

Published by Kyle Books, Abundance is new to What You Sow and it's a really cracking, exciting, inspiring read. And in celebration of our recent membership of Good Reads, where we’ll be regularly sharing reviews of our favourite gardening books, enter the code “goodreads” at the checkout and I will give you 10% off Abundance or any other book you order from What You Sow. You can’t say fairer than that.

Find Abundance at www.whatyousow.co.uk

[Calum Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely practical book and explains many different ways to preserve your fruit and veg. Alys also tells you all the shortcuts and her personal hacks to deal with the gluts of food that can come from your garden or allotment.

What I like most is that the WHY is explained clearly so that you understand the priciples of food preserving. That lets you make your own adaptations easily and safely.

It's a great reference that I go back to year after year.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book, got it from the library but I am endeavouring to get a copy for myself.

[Danny Hodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, some exciting ideas to try, and beginner friendly for a storage/preservation rookie like me.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good intro to preserving in various ways, including bottling, making jam, jellies, cordials, freezing, drying, pickling and fermenting. I think a section on preserving via alcohol would have been appropriate.

[Annette McIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Covers more than just the usual methods of preserving your harvest.