Eight Ways to Preserve Your Harvest

By Pam Sherman:

Do you have too many zucchinis now, but not enough in winter? How can we enjoy our garden's bounty throughout the cold season? Here is a brief tour of some of the many ways humans have preserved their harvest from the dawn of gardening through today, with comments from our family's experience and experiments. Start by choosing the methods you prefer and which bring out the best in the particular food you are preserving. Try to preserve within 48 hours of harvesting; rinse and cut out all bad spots.

FREEZING

Most veggies can be blanched: boiled for a few minutes, removed from boiling to ice water, then put onto cookie sheets in portion-sized clumps and frozen. Check Extension's National Center for Home Food Preservation website for exact blanching and ice water times per crop.

Pop the portions into a freezer-worthy container and use quantities as needed for a meal. (Or spread in a thin layer and cut to portion sizes when frozen).

Most berries as well as rhubarb and some veggies can go into the freezer raw. Stone fruits as well, if you like the defrosted texture for smoothies or baking. 

Zucchini/summer squash appears to blanch/freeze better when shredded. We grate them, add salt, pepper, sometimes parmesan, toast lightly in the oven, then freeze by handfuls, which we add to winter omelettes. We also grill them in rounds brushed with an oil-based sauce as above or BBQ sauce before freezing for a mid-winter summer squash treat, adding the mushier rounds to blend in minestrone soups and hearty stews.    

STORING RAW

In the ground 

In warmer areas where the ground doesn't freeze hard, you can store root veggies in their garden bed insulated with straw bales to keep the ground dig-able during winter. Or in a straw-lined trench. 

A cool stone or brick cellar for food storage in sand or straw under the home was a selling point in colonial real estate. A root cellar at least three feet deep was common.  Cabins had a dug storage pit covered with boards near the kitchen hearth, where the veggies, particularly potatoes, were kept.

In the house in a cold room

Not having sand, we wrap carrots and beets individually in a clean, absorbent old towel (second choice is non-toxic newsprint), put them into 5-gallon plastic buckets with a loose lid, and store in a cold room. 

We converted our unheated northwest-facing office/guest room, where the winter winds hit first, into a cold-storage room for root vegetables, onions, and garlic by opening the window and sealing the door, monitoring the temperature and adjusting the window accordingly. We always store apples elsewhere because the ethylene gas they naturally exude causes other veggies like potatoes to sprout. 

In cold storage, potatoes keep well in mesh sacks, as do onions and garlic. Winter squash stay in the living room in a cool area, not cold, and do fine. 

Over the years, our cold-stored veggies have kept longer and longer—some until the next year's harvest. Our storing methods have not changed much; we attribute their keeping quality to selecting and saving our crop seed for long-term storage, among other characteristics. 

DRYING a.k.a. DEHYDRATING

Ristras

Our climate excels at this. Some gardeners like to dry food outside with the veggies and fruits protected by fine mesh screens or in a solar dehydrator, which can be bought or made. Others use a small, smoky outdoor fire where and when permitted. Some use electric dehydrators indoors or a kitchen oven on a low dehydrate setting. Others prefer to string fruits and veggies up in front of the wood stove—think ristras of chili peppers. Or place them in a single layer on trays or screens in any dry, airy place.  

I like to go one step further and powder some of the dried veggies and fruits—tomatoes, seaberries, squash, black currants for example--as flavorings to dust on top of dishes or ingredients to mix into dips or soups. 

Corn and garlic can be braided and hung from rafters or shelves to dry—or laid horizontally in cardboard boxes. Although I freeze some peas and beans such as favas in the tender, immature, green stage, other plants of the same variety are left to mature and dry on the vine, weather permitting. We look forward to winter evenings shelling dried beans and peas by the woodstove over a glass of homemade cider and good conversation. 

Dried food goods can be stored in clean cardboard boxes, paper bags, or glass jars.

SMOKING is a type of drying which can be done over a smudgy fire or in a purchased smoker. Even fruits can be smoked. 

CANNING

There is a lot of written and video info on canning. Procedures must be followed carefully. See Extension's National Center for Home Food Preservation website for starters. 

FERMENTING

Our favorite way to preserve our apple harvest is cidering. Kim chi and sauerkraut are also favorite fermented foods. I also do three-day fermentations with miso as an inoculant, adding corn, peas, carrots, tofu, herbs, and other ingredients as desired; the result is bubbly, tart, and sweet. A basic fermentation primer for both new and seasoned enthusiasts is The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz, winner of a James Beard Foundation Book Award; it's a lively read (pun intended). 

Refrigerator Pickled Jalapenos. Photo: Idelle Fisher

SALT, OIL, SUGAR, ALCOHOL, VINEGAR

Preserving the harvest these time-tested ways is familiar to most of us: pickles and vinegars of all kinds, jams, syrups, and honeys, essential oils and herbal tinctures, wine-preserved pears, jars of oil filled with roasted peppers and much more. A good start is Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning by the Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante (France) with a new Forward by Deborah Madison. 

VACUUM PACKING/SEALING

This method uses a specialized machine, and also entails package waste. Some love it, some find it unnecessary. For pros and cons, see the article, “Should I Vacuum Package Food at Home?”  on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website.

Pam Sherman has been growing and preserving the harvest at 8300' with her husband for over 25 years. They grow on one acre of an 1870's pioneer farm on the Front Range. She writes on regenerative gardening and related ecosystem topics.