So, a big part of August for us has been about keeping busy preserving food. Our dehydrator has been running non stop, mostly preparing vegetables for soup mixes, herbs for storage and tomatoes for dried tomato powder and pieces. Our new freezer (we went from a 4 cubic feet to a 12.5 cubic feet last month) is half full with over 10 pounds of various fresh herbs in cubes of oil, pestos, fresh fruit ready for smoothies, sauces and stocks. And our new canner has been put to good use, canning everything from jams to potatoes, pickles to chutneys, whole fruit to crab apple jelly. We are not even halfway done filling that pantry of ours and the big jobs (tomatoes, beets, sauerkraut and various pickled root vegetables) aren’t even on the radar yet. Not to mention apple picking season which has only just started! Needless to say, we are happy with how productive we’ve been and our looking forward to expanding our pantry even more over the next few months!
Here is the tally so far :
- 8 half pint size jars of blueberry-maple jam
- 7 half pint size jars and 3 pint size jars of raspberry jam
- 3 quarter pint size jars of crab apple jelly
- 8 half pint size jars of lemon-honey ground cherry jam
- 8 half pint size jars of peach butter
- 8 quart size jars of peaches
- 6 half pint size jars of zucchini relish
- 8 pint size jars of dilly beans
- 4 pint size jars of carrot-daikon radish pickles
- 2 quart size jars of yellow wax beans
- 6 pint size jars and 1 quart size jar of shredded zucchini
- 3 pint size jars of pickled bell peppers
- 3 pint size jars of green tomato chutney
- 5 pint size jars of tomatoes
- 6 quart size jars of potatoes
- 5 quart size jars of sweet corn kernels
Still from last year :
- 7 quart size jars and 1 pint size jar of hot and spicy tomatoes
- 2 quart size jars of fermented pickled beets
In our freezer right now :
- Over 40 pounds of strawberries, blueberries, melons (of all varieties), peaches and bananas.
- Over 15 pounds of fresh herbs blended in oils or made into pestos.
- Over 150 dehydrated cherry tomatoes.
- About 30 tomatoes, sliced and dried.
- Whole hot peppers of different varieties.
What have you been canning/freezing/dehydrating?
Family, Faith, Food and Fabric 
Oh, that’s great! It’ll be even more next year! We had very little left over from the ‘potager’ to preserve, but we did make some delicious blackberry jam recently.
LikeLike
Oh! This is not ALL from our garden. I wish we would have been able to preserve and keep so much. A lot of this is from our CSA basket, some from local farms and the farmer’s market. We are far from being able to self-suffice. But yes, you are right! Next year will be much more abundant… a winter of proper planning and twice the number of beds and gardens should do nicely. We are still planning on taking a CSA share next year, just for safety sake, but we are hopping on much less trips to the farmer’s market. 🙂
LikeLike
Hurray for a stocked pantry. I love the feeling of opening food from the garden in the dark cold days of winter. Enjoy!
LikeLike
Me too… it’s been hard to stop ourselves from just digging in! 🙂 We are now waiting for the abundant fall crops : carrots, beets, more potatoes, cabbages, Brussel sprouts, APPLES and PEARS! Oh still such goodness to eat and preserve!
LikeLike
Wow! Ya’ll are amazing! We’ve been canning and freezing but we have nowhere near the amount you do! And truly is there anything better than veggies or fruit you preserved yourself in the cold winter months? I think not! xo
LikeLike
I agree! And I’ve loved watching our daughter get into it… she wants to help. She wants to be a part of it and there is pride that comes with it in her hard work. She’s been present through the whole process this year : The garden, the CSA, the market, the growers… the picking, the collecting. the prep, the canning… It’s been wonderful to watch!
LikeLike
So, far just 12 pints of green beans. I have a bunch of canned beets and collards from years past because, really, I’m not particularly fond of them. I love fresh, roasted beets, but canned beets? Not so much. I also have a bunch of dilly beans from last year. They’re good, I just don’t feel like eating them all the time.
LikeLike
Do you can your beets in water or vinegar? I like fresh roasted beets as well (with the sauteed greens, just delish!) but I do love a pickled beet! And the tang of the fermentation makes them that more yummy.
LikeLike
I have never had pickled beets, although many people have told me that they love them. Maybe next time when I have a plethora of beets I need to do something with. 🙂
LikeLike
We’ve kept up with our CSA share pretty well, though there is quite a bit of broccoli, squash, and some kale in the freezer, along with some other tidbits. Our own tomatoes are coming in now. Jim already prepped a batch, but there will be a lot more. CSA potatoes… a little of a backlog, now. By the end of the week I’ll probably peel, boil, and mash a bunch for the freezer, too. Makes it easy to start a meal later. Lots of peppers, onions, garlic… some CSA and some our own garden.
I keep figuring out ways to cook from whole, more and more. Fewer chem-ingredients, more real nutrition. Probably won’t ever completely eliminate retail-processed foods. But we’re moving that direction. Has to be better for us and the Earth.
Here’s something I figured out the other day:
We’ve been making our own yogurt for more than a year. We used to buy it in individual plastic cups. Using pretty simple/conservative assumptions, since beginning our own production, we’ve reduced our plastic cup usage by more than 500 cups. That’s 500 cups that weren’t manufactured, transported to the dairy, transported from the dairy to the store, or transported from the store to our home. 500 cups that don’t need to be recycled, with their foil lids disposed of.
There is some offset, of course. We buy more milk, so there is production and transportation of that. And we have to wash a little equipment ourselves, so there is some water usage. Still, I think it is a win for the Earth’s health. I’m sure it’s a win for our own health.
LikeLike
I know what you mean about feeling that much better after switching to whole foods. We pretty much are 99% whole food now because of our onion and garlic restrictions, we can’t eat anything pre-made anymore. It’s definitely a lot of work, but you get good at it, you find a system and after a while it just becomes part of your day, you know?
And for the yogurt and the footprint, everything has a footprint! I was reading today about the onctroversy of coconut palm sugar : lower glycemic index but bad for coconut palm trees because a palm that produces sugar can’t produce coconuts so you are limiting the production of so many other healthy products. But then, I read an article about how the almond milk craze is sucking California dry of water because almond groves are some of the most water intensive cultures in the world… *sighs*
All we can do is out best and I think if everyone was a bit more careful, the Earth would be a much better place!
Thank you for sharing. 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, there are consequences to being alive. Can’t get away from that. But we all can do better, I think. I try to be a good example to those who are interested in making more food from scratch. And I try to follow the example of those who do that, too.
LikeLike
Living by example is really the only thing we can do. Trying to force people into it will never work. They have to make decisions for themselves. 🙂
LikeLike
That is so cool! I would love to be able to do that. I love to cook, even more all the time. To have a pantry stuffed with things we’ve grown would be perfect.
LikeLike
It is a very big undertaking. I don’t think I would have been ready a few years ago. But now, I’m ready… the entire time we were canning corn, I was thinking “canned corn is 99 cent a can”… but never did I think “all these hours aren’t worth it”. It’s been an amazing learning experience for our entire family.
Thank you for stopping by! Good night…
LikeLike
I love love LOVE taking stock of my preserving. It’s like a drug-free high. I’ve also been busy this summer. I think my count is roughly:
Three pints and three half pints of cherry butter
Just shy of three pints of apricot butter
Nine quarts of sliced peaches
Eight half pints of cherry peach jam
Six half pints of peach granny jam
Five half pints of strawberry quick jam
Eleven half pints of cherry blueberry jam
Dried six pounds of cherries
Approximately 20 quarts of chicken stock
Either four or five and a half pints of blackberry apricot jam
A big container full of dried peaches
Still to come: more dried peaches and LOTS of dried apples; tomato sauce; applesauces; maybe some frozen peaches, too.
LikeLike
Mmmmmm so many peaches!!!! They don’t grow local here, so when the closest most amazing ones come into season, we buy them every week for 3-4 weeks.
Sounds like a great pantry… add some homemade bread and sweet sweet breakfasts are set for the cold months! *rubs her tummy*
LikeLike
Wow, you’ve been busy. How wonderful to be able to dip into that store throughout your Winter.
LikeLike
And now, we have even more! Pickled cauliflower, bags upon bags of roasted tomatoes… It’s been a very good year. 🙂
LikeLike