Glut Cook

 The Glut Cook is not just the cooking but the making of little gluts through the year. a sort of behind the time almanac as we look at what we can do with the plentiful crops we can create for ourselves and our community. It is based on experience of creating a Living foodbank – providing food and seeds for local food banks. This blog comes from a simple idea of growing and saving seeds that conserve old varieties, provide food and a means for everyone to grow a little. After trying out a few staples and the rigours of our temperamental and changing climate we have found a few ways to help. It’s a journey in food security, resilience, and good old-fashioned community. Help a friend, help yourself, make a bit of food and share it. Or just find a tree and begin thinking under it. The Glut Cook is a bit of botany what a smidge of practicality to help provide food, support conservation, biodiversity and spread the products to help friends, family, and those in our community. So, we ha...

Glut the first – Rhubarb Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb everywhere and all we do is crumble. Before go any further it’s a veg because we eat the stalk. It also has a large bulbous bottom underground that needs to be fed. It is also often the first of the Glut cook additions –. Its bulbous bottom is critical to its survival and needs to be fed by the large but poisonous (if you eat them) leaves. Having said that it’s not so simple to overwinter -we had a problem with a rat burrowing into the bed and eating the roots. Rhubarb is resilient – we let it grow, harvested less, added a little compost and it’s still going strong. Getting your glut going It’s also surprisingly easy to grow from seed. A present of heritage seeds (a cut price advent calendar) has led to a small (ish) container of rhubarb slowly developing. So the glut starts by growing:          Try seeds if you are short of cash and contacts – I planted in March in a warm cupboard and waited as the weathe...