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Must admit I had a little cry when I heard that news this morning - they played a bit of Cathy‘S Clown on the TV and that was one off my all time favourites.,.

I wash & chop my beans, then blanch them for 3 or 4 minutes, dry on a clean (non fluffy!) tea towel and spread them separately on a metal tray which I put in the freezer. After a couple of hours they can be prised off with a fish slice and put into bags or small containers. I always try and pick my beans before they get too long and full of beans!!! (Except for half a dozen which I leave on the plant until the pods are brown - I use the beans inside for next year.)

Yes. Seems that a lot is down to preference. I had intended putting them into meals size bags to freeze so I can't see that is a problem with them sticking together.

Thats when songs were songs not the stuff i dont understand today. They will be missed.

Was going to say open freeze them but Margie beat me to it.

Took my 6x 1kg jars out of the sterilising pan this morning. Three lids just slipped off much to my anger. I'd overfilled them with sugar syrup and boiling water does what its supposed to do and forced the lids. Never mind we had one for a sweet at lunchtime, gave another to my son and froze the other. They were nice and had kept their colour. Thats enough preserving for now .....maybe, it depends whether the price comes down again. I saved the peel from the peaches and dehydrated them and ground them into a powder ready to use when making cakes and biscuits. I'm dehydrating marshmallows

Thanks folks. All done - 'til next weekend

I used to blanch mine, but I don't bother any more. I find that blanching affects the texture too much. Just the freezing affects the texture of the beans a bit, so I have found that just washing and drying then prepping carefully is all that's needed. I either just shake them dry or use a teatowel. Any kind of fabric with a pile on it will stick to your beans and make them fluffy! Then straight into a freezer bag, squeeze as much air out as poss.. then straight into the freezer. They last well into the following spring or longer. and will keep more of their original textur

Hi Nonna and thanks for that. We don't have a dehydrator but our ovens will go down to very low heats, which can amount to pretty much the same thing. I've no success with peppers, but in a good year I've had enough chillies to make chilli jam..which is lovely on a cracker or oatcake, with a bit of cheese or whatever. I've also frozen chillies. At the moment my knees are so painful that standing for long periods in the kitchen 'prepping' stuff etc.. isn't really on, but I've realised I have several Kgs of the bigger tomatoes which won't get used fresh, so I'm going to cook those

We have our Alexa device in the kitchen and subscribe to Amazon prime which gives us any music we care to ask it to play , usually whilst cooking. We also use "her" for timing whilst preparing food , I.e. "Alexa set timer for 25 mins" You can also use it as a free video phone for family and friends ( models with a screen ) as long as they have a similar device. Mines also linked to our front door security camera though the picture is on a slight delay to be of much use .

Yes DJ we've frozen them "as is" whole because we haven't had time to chop or freeze. They are handy when making soups. We eliminated our "veggie plot" yrs ago. When we bought this house it had a huge back garden uphill which was an orchard, 5 apple, a damson, 3 figs, 4 pears, persimmon,walnut, and its so long ago I cant remember any other. They hadnt been taken care of and so slowly if they didnt produce any more they were eliminated. May seem strange but at the front we had enough land to plant 130 different varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and some salads. We are south facing an