Preserving the harvest of a garden for year-round eating

By Rennie Phillips

Most everyone I know is harvesting their tomatoes, green beans, squash, onions, and the list goes on and on. But when there is an abundance, one needs to be able to store some till later. Even a little stored for this winter will taste amazing.

I dug my garlic the other day so I hung it up on the rafters in my shop. I'll leave it there until the stalks and the covering on the garlic dries. Once dry, I'll trim off the roots and the top. This garlic then can be stored about anywhere it is dry, as long as the temperature isn't above normal. I store ours in a room in my shop that we keep about 70 to 72 degrees.

Marge and I also pulled the last of our onions. Most of the onions ended up being from about 12 to 16 ounces per bulb. We left the tops on them, so we tied the tops together and also hung them on the rafters in our shop. My brother lays his onions on the floor of his shop till they are dry. Once dry, one can trim the tops and then store where it's dry and not too warm. We'll store ours in the cool room in my shop.

We dug our potatoes about a month ago, so we have them in the cool room as well. We lay them out in cardboard boxes and then check them for spoiled potatoes. It seems like one now and then spoils, and if you don't catch it, the ones around the bad potato will spoil. The potatoes will keep a lot better if you don't wash the potatoes. You can brush the dirt off, but just don't wash them. We had enough potatoes left from a year ago to plant last spring.

Sometimes Marge cans the potatoes in quart jars. These canned potatoes will last for several years. A friend of mine used to can potatoes, carrots and meat in quart jars. This makes for an almost instant meal.

Most winter squash will last a number of months if cured. Squash, like spaghetti squash, need to be picked and then cured for one to two weeks. Simply lay them out in the shade and let them rest for a week or so. They will last a good time if stored in a cool place. Acorn squash won't store very well, so they probably need to be used first. If you have winter squash, check it to be sure the bugs aren't enjoying your tasty veggie.

Zucchini is a summer squash. We grate up a good amount of zucchini and then freeze it to use in the winter. Marge makes bread with this frozen zucchini. She also mixes an egg and some cracker crumbs with the grated zucchini and fries them. These zucchini fritters are pretty good.

One garden veggie we enjoy later on in the winter is green beans. The normal way of preserving green beans is to can them in pint or quart jars. A year ago Marge tried freezing them, and they ended up tasting downright good. She simply cleans the beans and snaps off the ends. She leaves the beans whole. She doesn't blanch them but simply puts them in freezer bags and freezes them. Then, when she takes them out of the freezer, she simply cooks them as normal.

We freeze some of our tomatoes almost every year. We normally freeze them with their skins on, but you can drop them in boiling water and the skins will slip right off. Marge also cans whole tomatoes. We use these whole tomatoes later on to make breaded tomatoes. I love them. We also run tomatoes through a tomato press and can the juice. Tomato juice is one of my favorites. We can a lot more whole tomatoes than juice. It doesn't take much to turn whole tomatoes into tomato juice. If you freeze your tomatoes with their skins on, all you need to do is start to thaw them and the skins will slip off.

We use quite a bit of peppers through the winter, so Marge cuts the peppers up and freezes them in quart or gallon bags. These peppers will last at least a year or until you get some new ones next year. Most of our peppers are sweet, so we don't freeze many hot peppers. Marge does make jalapeño jelly, so she freezes some whole hot peppers to make jelly. I grow green, yellow, orange and red peppers, so Marge tries to mix the colors. I know, they are just beautiful.

We love cucumbers so we end up preserving a good amount of cucumbers. One of our favorites is dill pickles. Marge makes dill pickles in quart and half-gallon jars. It is best to use fresh dill, but dill seed can be used if needed. We also like refrigerator pickles. These will need to be left in the frig until you eat them. Since one uses a good amount of vinegar, the chances of spoiling if left in the frig are next to none. We normally make several gallons of refrigerator pickles.

Corn can be frozen on the cob or cooked and then cut off the cob and frozen. We tend to cut ours off the cob and freeze. It takes a lot less room to freeze this way. Some freeze their corn with the shucks still on the cob. I'd pull the shucks back and make sure there aren't any worms.

I know there are more veggies that we need to store for later. Drop me a note or a question and I'll try to answer. You can also Google it. It seems like I'm on Google most every day looking up something.