Preserving the Bounty

Near the beginning of my journey into helping my family have a healthy diet, I reached a point where I felt overwhelmed by the task of finding out what was in everything we wanted to eat, where it came from, how it was packaged, etc etc…. And I thought, “well hell, I will just have to grown everything myself and can it myself, and hunt my own meat and bake all of our bread from grains I grow myself… wait is that even possible? how much land am I gonna need?” Thankfully that is not exactly how it turned out. I learned a few important things on the way to where we are now.

1. There are a few great companies that source their products carefully, package them relatively responsibly & safely.
2. I can make some compromises, not everything, always has to be the best of the best… better is better & that is sometimes plenty.
3. If I go to the farmer’s market I can just ask the person at the table (who has to be the one growing the food at my market) about their food, instead of having to do a lot of internet research and writing letters to customer service departments that never respond.
4. I can grow and put up some of my own food, it is really not that hard, especially if you start small and grow as you go.

When I started canning, I began by only doing small batches of jam in my waterbath canner. Now I have a large pressure canner that I sometimes fill with a double stack of pint jars. and I need two bookcases in the basement for our canned food. I also learned that some things are better frozen and still others are best dried, so I do a fair amount of freezing and dehydrating too…

Apples on the dehydrator tray

I am currently in the thick of my canning season. I’ve been a little behind this year, and missed the sweet cherry harvest entirely, but have still been able to get a lot of produce put up, and I think there is still more to come. I have found that, in the gardening space available to me, I am not able to grow enough of most foods to can them, especially tomatoes. My family eats a lot of tomatoes when they are in season, so the amount I grow, we tend to gobble up before I can collect enough to do a batch of canning. It is, fortunately very easy to find local producers selling organic and often heirloom tomatoes in half bushel boxes for canning, enough so that I can even shop around for a good price.

Some of the tomatoes from my garden

I did manage to grow more than enough tomatillos for canning this year, in fact I had so much, I had to give several pounds away to friends and family. I almost always buy about 5 dozen ears of corn to freeze, and love to make as much salsa as I possibly can, since we always eat through it and then some.

Merle inspecting about 20lbs of tomatillos from my garden this year

We like to U-Pick most of our fruit, which begins in May with strawberries and generally ends in September or October with raspberries, so fruits get put up all throughout the year. I’m going to share a few of my favorite methods for putting up food and will post recipes in the next few posts.

Strawberries: Frozen, Dried & Canned in Jams and Sauces or Juices

Peas & Asparagus: Blanched and Frozen

Rhubarb: Frozen & Canned into Jam with other fruit (mainly strawberry)

Tart Cherries: Frozen

Blueberries: Frozen & Canned in Jam (I sometimes dry some for baking, granola or tea, but they do not dry well for me in terms of making a good snack)

Greens: Blanched and Frozen, or Dried (dried greens are superb in smoothies, soups, sprinkled into spaghetti, or even added to muffins)

Sweet Cherries: Dried (one of my favorite snacks), Frozen or Canned in Jam

Cucumbers: Fermented into Pickles, or Canned Pickles

Broccoli: Blanched and Frozen

Red Peppers: Roasted and Frozen

Tomatoes: Roasted and Canned, Canned in Salsas, and Sauces and Dried (especially cherry or grape tomatoes)

Peaches: Frozen or Canned in Syrup (my family doesn't eat a lot of canned peaches, so I mainly freeze them now) or Jams

Melons: Dried (they taste like candy!)

Apples: Dried (my family LOVES to eat them dried as a snack, it is difficult to make enough) or Canned in Sauce or Spiced Rings

Herbs: Dried & Frozen in Oil or Pesto

Carrots, Beets, Kohlrabi, Cabbage: These all make excellent Fermented Pickles / Kraut (my family and our friends devour Pickled Carrots)

Wild Mushrooms: Dried or Sauted in butter & Frozen

Corn: Blanched or Grilled and Frozen or Canned in Relishes or Salsas

I also like to Can some Chili & Soups, to have on hand for “emergencies”

Here is a Link to Basic Canning Instructions from the USDA

Using a handy tool my dad gave me for cutting the corn off the cob