Midsummer is the time for active canning and the beginning of the processing of seasonal berries, fruits, herbs and vegetables. Keeping as much delicious fresh food as possible for the winter is a daunting task. To cope with it, it is worth highlighting priority tasks and monitoring the timing of the beginning and end of the season of a particular fruit.
Before deciding what, how and in what quantities to harvest for the winter in July, you need to take into account some factors: territorial, seasonal and weather. An important role is played by the presence or absence of their own economy. Summer residents can collect almost the entire palette of harvesting fruits, roots, herbs and berries on their site. But people who do not have their own house with a plot outside the city will have to be content with only purchased products. And therefore, be especially careful and careful when choosing raw materials for preparations for the winter.
But growing it right or choosing it on the counter is not enough. It is necessary to be able to prepare food, preserving the maximum amount of nutrients and natural taste.
There are many ways of processing. It all depends on personal preference and capabilities. So sweet fruits and berries can be ground with sugar, turned into chips, dried fruits, candied fruits, made jam or sauces, turned into jams, jellies, confitures, mashed potatoes, compotes, juices, or simply frozen whole or cut into halves, quarters. Vegetables, as a rule, are pickled, salted, canned, rolled up in their own juice or in the form of salads, soup dressings, caviar. Herbs can be dried, pickled and frozen, added to juices and compotes.
Early July is the time for garden honeysuckle. This extremely healthy berry is the first in line for processing. Already in the middle of summer: felt cherries, raspberries, red, white and black currants, blueberries ripen, and at the end of the month the collection of apricots and gooseberries begins. Also at this time, you can collect juicy cherry plum. In early July, you can have time to collect outgoing strawberries, but only if June was not hot and dry. In the areas of residents of the southern part of the country, irga, mulberry, blackberry, gonobol ripen; in the northern part, blueberries and cloudberries become the basis of July collection.
June is the traditional time for the first greens, lettuce and radishes. But the middle of summer pleases with the first harvests of zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, cabbage and carrots. But it all depends again on individual characteristics: care, greenhouse or soil, time and region of planting. It is important to remember that at this time you cannot overexpose the fruits, you need to regularly check the plantings and harvest. In the second half of the month, you should pay attention to winter garlic, cabbage, beans, potatoes and green peas.
Soup dressings, peas and beans are actively canned in July; cooking lecho, squash caviar, rolling tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as pickling and salting them. You can also roll them up separately or make an assortment, prepare them for the winter in the form of salads or snacks. Arrows of garlic should also be frozen for the winter. They will be a great addition to any meal.
In July, a bountiful harvest of herbs already begins, which can be harvested for the winter in various ways. Herbs and leaves for tea are usually dried or fermented. These include, for example, willow tea, strawberry, currant, lingonberry, mint, lemon balm, tarragon, lemongrass, etc. Dill, parsley, sorrel and basil can be frozen, dried or pickled. The latter method is considered the most preferable, since the greatest amount of vitamins and nutrients is stored in the herbs.
Mushroom season begins in July. It's time to arm yourself with everything you need and go into the forest for boletus, boletus, chanterelles, boletus and, of course, porcini mushrooms. The way of harvesting for each mushroom is different. So chanterelles, for example, cannot be frozen right away, otherwise they will taste bitter. Before sending them to the freezer, it is worth boiling them a little. It is recommended not to dry the butter, but to pickle; porcini mushrooms - dry.
But whatever mushrooms, fruits, berries, vegetables, herbs and in whatever form they are preserved for the winter, they will always be a great addition to the usual menu and an excellent treat on the table on winter days and evenings.
