Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Canning and
Freezing Produce
h
17
h
and Meat
One of the things that happens when you grow your own food is that you'll likely have an abun-
dance of one produce at any given time. Your tomatoes will all be harvested over a three-, maybe
four-month period, yet you want to be able to produce in those few weeks all the tomatoes you will
use for the entire year. Storing the tomatoes so you can use them during the winter months when
nothing is growing makes your food supply a year-long provision for your family.
Canning and freezing are two of the primary methods of storing excess produce from the backyard
farm and are two of the simplest methods for beginners. While most people tend to think of
canning vegetables, I find the taste much better when veggies are preserved by freezing instead.
Canned vegetables tend to be good only for stew and chili, where their soggy texture won't make
much difference.
Fruit, on the other hand, is wonderful frozen, and blanching vegetables before freezing means you
wouldn't have to cook them as long. Most foods will store in the freezer 6 to 12 months, while
canned goods will store, without electricity I might add, for two or three years on the short side.
Try experimenting with various types of food preservation for the different types of food you want
to save and see what works best for you. Having long-term storage in place is a key component of
homestead life. Food is cyclical on the homestead so you grow what can be grown when it can be
grown and store as much as possible for when it isn't available fresh. This mind-set was one of the
biggest adjustments for me when I began my journey to self-sufficiency. Not depending on the
grocery store for shopping on a weekly basis was a foreign concept that took some getting used to.
Becoming more self-sufficient means storing the bounty of the backyard farm at the peak of the
seasons, when bounty is available.
