Preserving your Vegetable crops
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Preserving your Vegetable Garden Harvest - Eat Garden-fresh for 4-6 Months!
Everyone should be working to save your harvest, either by storing or preserving. Canning, drying, and freezing, are good ways of preserving your crops such as beans, corn, peas, peppers, summer squash, and tomatoes. They need to be done immediately after picking, while crops are fresh and tasty. Whether you cold-store or preserve your produce depends on the type of food you;ve grown, your facilities, and your family's eating preferences.
<Cold storage of vegetables such as cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes, squash, and turnips can give you the best tasting and healthiest food of the four methods, and may even be the least expensive in the long run. And you can eat every one of these garden-fresh even 4 to 6 months after they've been harvested! This requires some careful preparation, so let's discuss how best to prepare for and store your fall harvest.>Source The Food for Everyone Foundation ;
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Remember grow what your family will eat, please donate or preserve the rest.
Cold storage and preservation of vegetables part two
Your basement might just be perfect
Since tomatoes are many peoples' favorite garden produce, let's discuss them first. Before the first frost, pick all your tomatoes, including the green ones. Handle them gently, because cuts or bruises will cause them to spoil quickly. Fruit that's close to ripe can be placed on a kitchen counter, out of direct sunlight, and it will ripen in a few days. Green fruit should be placed on a shelf in a cool, dry place, such as your basement or garage. As they begin to ripen you can bring them into the kitchen. Always remove any fruit that is beginning to spoil. We eat tomatoes into January this way. Food for Everyone Foundation
Sustainable gardening Non-Profit
The Food For Everyone Foundation's mission is to teach and assist families everywhere to grow successful and sustainable vegetable gardens, and really enjoy the experience.
Tender vegetables and preservation part three.
What about the tender veggies how do I store them?
Most of your other vegetables need more help to keep them fresh. If your garden is small and you don't have much to store, you may be able to use an old refrigerator, or a barrel buried in the back yard. However, for those who are serious about providing fresh food for your families, I recommend a root cellar, either under the house or buried outside. A good size is 8' wide and at least 10' deep. This gives you 2' for an aisle and 3' on each side for storage. A shelf on each side is good for things like onions and garlic, which need to be kept dry.You can set it into the side of a hill or dig a hole 4' to 5' deep in a corner of the yard, build the cellar, and cover it with the excess dirt. This will help insulate it and maintain the low, but not freezing temperatures you need. Provide yourself a small door and insulate it well.
Harvest your crops at peak maturity and store only those which are free of disease or damage. Don't harvest for storage until late fall, since more starches are converted to sugars by the cool weather. Root crops should be picked fresh and stored immediately. Potatoes and squash, on the other hand, first need to be cured at 60-75 degrees for 7 to 14 days. Most produce should be stored at just above freezing temperatures, except winter squash, which does better at or above 50 degrees.
Purchase the Mittleider digital gardening manuals and save over 40% compared to the printed versions.
100% of the income earned goes to support the Foundation.Preserving Root crops part four.
Root crops store rather easily
Your root crops will stay fresh and sweet for months if you harvest them with roots intact and pack them in wet sawdust. Cabbage and other brassicas also need their roots. Remove outer leaves, then pack the roots in wet sawdust, leaving the cabbage exposed. Provide separation between crops to avoid mixing flavors, and to keep squash dry.Potatoes should not be as wet as the root crops. They will do well in temperatures below 40 degrees, but pack them in slightly moist, rather than wet sawdust. Peat moss and sand, or combinations of all three, can be substituted for straight sawdust, but are not as ideal. I recommend you work with your neighbors to find a sawmill, and obtain a truckload.
Onions and garlic also store well. They can handle cold temperatures but, like winter squash, they do better with humidity only 60 to 70 percent. Therefore these should be up off the damp floor, on shelves or hung from the ceiling. A cold basement can also work, but be sure to provide separation from living areas to avoid the strong smell.
Remember, cold temperatures are essential for good long-term storage of vegetables, but do not let them freeze! Insulate your root cellar well. Good healthy eating to you
Veggies
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Do you preserve your vegetables?
Do you can or dry your vegetables?
Are you new to preserving vegetables or an old timer (Pro)
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Do you preserve your vegetable harvest?
Do you can, freeze or dry your vegetables say hello please
If you have a Vegetable based site or just want to say hi drop me a note and let me know about your lenses and websites.
I will visit them also.
Sandra Storr wrote
We have extremely cold winters in Prince Edward Island, Canada, but are able to eat garden produce all year around by root cellering, canning, drying and freezing.
A great storage crop for us is beans and we grow a number of heirloom varieties. They can be cooked in stews and soups and can also be sprouted for fresh winter salads.
Seeds like sunflower and flax can also be stored for winter use. Collect Turkish Rocket (arugula) seeds for winter sprouting and if you have any brassicas gone to flower, collect those seeds for winter sprouting too.
When cooking those stored squashes, the seeds can be roasted for a tasty winter snack.
www.romanyrest.net
Posted February 20, 2009
RuralRoute2 wrote...
We freeze, can and store root veggies and fruit all the time. There's nothing better than corn chowder and peach cobbler in January :-).
Blessings,
LeAnn
Posted October 17, 2008
lynn wrote
I have a garden and am very interested in learning how to perserve as much of it as possible. I also can many of the vegetables but not much luck with freezing. Can you tell me where to start and any suggestions you may have
Posted April 24, 2008
estories wrote...
I'm sure there is much interest in this lens topic. An informative lens to promote a healthy lifestyle! When everyone has preserved their produce,I hope they will visit my lens Labels With Love for all their label needs for their canning and freezing.Holiday labels! www.squidoo.com/labelswithlove
Posted August 10, 2007
Preserve your vegetables correctly for year round good eats
Purchase the Mittleider digital gardening manuals and save over 40% compared to the printed versions.
100% of the income earned goes to support the Foundation.
Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables
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Trail Food: Drying and Cooking Food for Backpacking and Paddling
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Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation
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Backpack Gourmet: Good Hot Grub You Can Make at Home, Dehydrate, and Pack for Quick, Easy, and Healthy Eating on the Trail
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Canning & Preserving for Dummies
Amazon Price: $11.04 (as of 07/06/2009)
Do you can, dry or freeze your produce?
If you have a favorite Vegetable preservation site please add it
Preserving your vegetables is a healthy and frugal way to improve your health and save some money.
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Educational resources about Preserving vegetables and fruits
- Freezing fruits and vegetables correctly
- Excellent PDF on how to freeze fruits safely.
Vegetables
A vegetable is an edible plant or part of a plants other than a sweet fruit or seed. The word is not scientific, however, but instead is largely based on culinary and cultural tradition. Thus the application of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. For example, some people consider mushrooms to be vegetables"Mushrooms" classified under "Other vegetables". In Inside the Pyramid: What foods are in the vegetable group? Unites States Department of Agriculture. Last modified on 2009-04-15 04:56 PM, accessed on 2009-06-24. "When stuffing round vegetables such as cherry tomatoes and mushroom caps, first cut a small slice off the bottom..." In [http://www.joyofcookingfoods.com/Cooking_Tips.aspx Cooking Tips: Stuffing Vegetable Hors D'oeuvres] at Joy of Cooking site. Bellisio Foods, Inc. (2009). Accessed on 2009-06-24."Mushrooms" classified under "VEGETABLES". In Suggestions - Vegetables at Cooks.com. Accessed on 2009-06-24]. while others consider them a separate food category.Alternative Crops and Plants: Vegetables and Mushrooms. Unites States Department of Agriculture. Last modified on 2009-06-08, accessed on 2009-06-24.
Some vegetables can be consumed raw, and some may (or must) be cooked in various ways, most often in non-sweet (savory or salty) dishes. However, some vegetables are often used in desserts and other sweet dishes, such as pumpkin pies and carrot cakes.
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