Food storage thoughts…

Tonight I’ll be processing more beans, making yogurt, making eggplant parmesan (at Jeff’s request), and reorganizing (or rather, organizing, it’s so crazy up there!) my craft space. I noticed yesterday or the day before that the beans were looking harvestable again, and so I went out on this deliciously cool and rainy afternoon and harvested a ton. At least, I think it’s a ton- being the third full harvest and from only two 8×4 raised beds. I’m happy with the beans we’re getting. 

The tomatoes, on the other hand, are really sad this year. Super blighted and dying away… I don’t really know what to do about them. I may just harvest all the green tomatoes that haven’t been affected yet and try to ripen them indoors, just so we can get the most out of the plants. Otherwise, things are looking good. Our pepper plants are affected by some kind of bacteria, but the actual peppers are looking fine and happy, and we’ve stored a ton already. Jeff and I sat down and had a little food storage meeting the other day, about what we wanted out of our vegetables and how we’ll put them up. I wanted to post it here for my reference, and also to see if anyone has suggestions.

The fate of the garden… 2010-11

Tomatoes: at least 40 quarts of crushed, 20 or so of sauce, and as much salsa as we can get, red and green- maybe 30 pints or so, and also my tomato skin relish (for which I will definitely post a recipe this year)

Peppers: as many as we can harvest, sliced and frozen in quart bags.

Green beans: can, dilly beans, lacto-fermented relish?

Eggplant: baba ghanouj, to freeze; eggplant tomato relish, eggplant soup

Greens (chard, kale, collards, purslane, spinach, and lamb’s quarters): blanch and freeze, put in canned soups

Summer squash: shred & freeze, pickle, soups

Brussels Sprouts: blanch/freeze

Broccoli: blanch/freeze, soups

Beets/Carrots/Potatoes/Onions: cold storage, soups, lacto-fermented

Cabbage: sauerkraut, kim chi, soups, blanch/freeze big leaves for stuffing

Radishes: pickle/lacto-ferment

Garlic: cold storage

Various Herbs: dry, freeze, pesto

Winter squash: buy from local farmers (acorn, butternut, pumpkin, delicata)- whole, in cold storage

Corn: buy from local farmers- enough for a pint a week

Fruit: buy from local farmers and freeze or dry, will make apple butter and apple/pepper chutney, possibly some freezer jams (although I’m trying to really limit sugar in our lives, so if we want jam then I might just take frozen fruit and cook down with a little honey as needed…)

Meat: all bulk from local sources

Am I forgetting anything? Is there anything that you would do that I haven’t mentioned?

Gracie
Gracie

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