Picking up on an abandoned discussion from earlier this month...

quote:

Originally posted by gridgardener:
The way most people live today storing large quanities of food for winter is not an option any more since that knowledge is no longer common. Also people have food companies to store
and provide the fresh fruit and vegatables all year round.

people seem to want fresh vegatables all year round and that requires shipping or should we go back to old days when potatoes ,turnips and few other vegetables where all you might find that where not canned during winter.

How many people here store vegetables over winter? What foods and what methods do you use? What are your habits about buying/eating fresh greens and veggies in the winter?

I'll start. We store as much as we can, which in many cases runs out sometime in February or March. But some of the things we store last us year 'round. For instance, last season our potatoes ran out in late January. But this year we nearly doubled our planting. Last season our onions made it into April. This season we have only a few more. Last season we also stored pasta sauce, blueberries, sweet and dill pickles, pickled beets, pickled turnips, beans, cabbage, garlic and a few other things.

The things that lasted until next harvest were pickles (of course), beets, blueberries, and turnips (the turnips weren't too popular).

This season we have frozen peas, beans, pasta sauce, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, summer squash and blueberries. We have dried dill, basil, oregano, marjoram, sage, and we will be drying peppers, eggplant and possibly a few other things. Many of those things will run out mid-winter, but there's enough dill, basil, marjoram, sage, pasta sauce, and blueberries for a year.

This season we have also pickled beets and cukes and we're about to start a batch of sauerkraut.

In the root cellar, we're keeping onions, garlic, winter squashes and lots of potatoes. If the garlic holds it's flavor it will last until summer. The potatoes should be enough to keep 'til March and the squash and onions will run out mid-winter.

In the garden, we'll over-winter our carrots (where we will pull them periodically over the winter).

We rarely buy fresh veggies at any time of the year. But in the winter we've been known to buy them when we have company for dinner. Otherwise, we stick to carrots, cabbage, and our frozen and pickled supplies. The beets are especially nice.

This season we're also experimenting with extending the season for fresh greens with a combination of greenhouse management and cold frames. Each year we try to increase the varieties and volume of fruits, herbs, and vegetables that we store. For next season we have built more berry beds for raspberries and strawberries, and we've built an asparagus bed. I grew and stored a lot in the 80's, and then went through some changes in life, and now we're returning to the habit.

Tonight (in New Hampshire where we've had three frosts so far) we had a salad from our garden with fresh dill, cilantro, mescaline, and baby spinach (with the expected sweet peppers and tomatoes).

What are your habits, methods, philosophy about storing food?

I grow enough onions and garlic to last until next harvest. Greens are kept alive in my garden until November. Everything else---my neighbors help me eat so there is nothing left to save. I made an agreement with the neighbors that if they donate to me all their leaves, fire place ashes, and anything else compostable, they can help themselves to a fair share of my garden. they are are wondeful neighbors and I would probably feel too guilty hording.

About all I've been growing in any quantity is garlic, which I find does not usually last until the next harvest (June).

This year I canned enough whole tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and tomato juice to last the year. Froze some peas, I still have some corn and beans from last year. The potatoes all sold at our little veggie stand so won't have any of them to eat this winter.. have to remember to plant more of them next year... thought 50 pounds to plant would be enough!

I have 5 pairs of pantyhose in the basement full of onions.. this works great just hang from the ceiling by the crotch and pop those onions out of the runs! I'm hoping they will last all winter, hard to tell tho, we eat lots of onions.

The apples are almost ready to pick, and I'll make a dozen pies and put in the freezer, the rest of the apples I wrap in newspaper and put in a covered tote in the basement, we usually eat those until the begining of April.

We haven't had a frost here yet and after we have one I'll pull carrots, clean them well and put in bags in the fridge... done that for years and usually run out some time in April, thinking I may have more this year so maybe May. I still have to pick the green peppers and dry them, and have been debating whether I should pickle some of the hot peppers or just dry them. I have some parsley, oregano, and dill weed drying right now. And my husband went riceing so we have over a hundred pounds of wild rice... not exactly grown in our garden tho!

We have been thinking of putting a green house on the south side of one of our sheds that is heated and housing animals to grow some fresh veggies over winter. Has anyone done this successfully? Even if it's just greens would be helpfull, both of us eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and miss it so much when the garden is done for. Guess I should mention that we are in zone 3 in MN and winters are not warm! But I can get some of the heat from the shed into the greenhouse... and have been playing with the idea of doing that. Just wondering if there is enough sunshine for anything to grow in the middle of winter?

My situation is different from most of you, since my garden is so small, and also because we can grow fresh veggies year round. I dry figs, which usually last until about February, and freeze guavas. If the crop was heavy then I dry apricots and tomatoes, but that wasn't the case this year. And I keep garlic in string bags in the basement. That's about it! If I lived where there was a real winter I would consider freezing/drying more. Can't stand canned vegetables!

In my previous garden there was a heavy bearing plum tree, and I used to make plum preserves and plum brandy.

My onions last about a year in storage and
this year I have a dozen large buttercup squash,carrots and garlic to keep through the winter.
Freezer contents lasts until end of April: 10 qts ea. of peas + blueberries along with about 12+qts of tomato sauce.
Beets,broccoli+spinach; steamed in cubes with herbs are: 3 different colors of carrots,kohlrabi,zucchini costata+yellow beans.
Mesclun salad mix and several kinds of lettuce are still outside under cover.
Juliet tomatoes on the counter top should last another 2 weeks.

I grew up with a person who survived the Great Depression - Dad horded much more than just food, but that was his favourite. He had himself a wife, two girls and himself, yet he kept 2 of those 7-foot chest freezers full, Mom had two pantries to stock, we had a root cellar and Dad dried wild meat alot.
Of course, living in a city as opposed to owning a large piece of land, they bought things on special most of the time. Like 200 pounds of potatoes, bushel baskets of root vegetables and fruit for canning. Four cases of cream of mushroom soup (God, I hate that soup!). What we did grow, was ate fresh.

I caught the hording disease from my father. I now have a husband, and a small boy under my roof, yet one 7 foot freezer is mine to fill, I insisted on a large pantry and I was happy to discover a small unfinished area in the basement had once served as a root cellar, and it is brimming again. What I do not grow, I buy at the Farmer's Market and local farm stands. I don't can down as much as I used to - too many times the glass jars are ignored - but the sweet stuff are very welcome, still.
My favourite winter vegetables are squash, so there's at least 20 different kinds and shapes waiting in the root cellar for me at all times.

I, like Jenniferch, can grow at least some veggies virtually year-round. Greens, cole crops, root crops, and herbs, at least, all winter. So my need for winter storage is less.

I do freeze huckleberries and blueberries in season (May), which lasts us about 6 months. I can huckleberry & blueberry syrup and jam. We make a trip to the docks and freeze shrimp in blocks of ice - if we got enough, it may last 'til spring. We freeze excess summer Gulf-caught fish. If DH gets a deer, we freeze that. (I'd like to look into making jerky.) I chop and freeze excess sweet pepper, and shred & freeze excess summer squash. I can summer veggie chowchow. If we ever get enough figs, I may try drying them. As it is, I keep waiting for enough figs to make newton-type cookies to freeze for Christmas. When we've had ample sweet corn, I've frozen it. My aunt brings down frozen Michigan raspberries for me when she comes in November.

Right now, I freeze more than I can. I'd like to can more - I want to know what is in my food.

Our storage needs are more a hedge against economic uncertainty, to maximize harvest, and for hurricane preparedness. Fresh food could pretty well be got here year-round in some form or another - mullet with a cast net, abundant fat squirrels (a depression staple), winter-snared rabbit, gardens, wild-foraged, etc... (I, too, was reared by grandparents that weathered the depression and had a tendency to hoard - it kind of rubs off on you.)

Here, a well-stocked pantry is much more a hurricane season necessity than a winter thing.

quote:

Originally posted by d in dixie:
I want to know what is in my food.

Us too! That's our primary reason for growing.

quote:

Originally posted by franeli:
3 different colors of carrots

Franeli,

Did you grow Fedco's "Rainbow" carrot mix? We tried them this year and we like the flavor but they don't seem to be the solid producers that we thought they'd be. Of course, I haven't personally looked at them for about a month. DW has been picking for suppers. So maybe they've filled out a lot since I last looked.

Hi,
I have 'white satin', 'mokum','sugarsnax' and 'yellowstone' carrots...all from Fedco.

My wife and I usually put up around 150 to 200 jars of veggies and meat. Purple hull peas, cream peas, pinto beans. Then we stew and can some squash and zucchini. Add a few jars of pickled okra, and cukes. Then lots and lots of tomatoes. Stewed, and regular, and salsa.
Then when we slaughter Spring chickens, we usually boill them off and debone them, then can the shreaded chicken in jars for later use. Also do some of our hog we slaughter. Makes great soup starters or sandwich meat or just open a jar to eat with supper as...well...meat. Its already cooked, just needs heated up. Better than Spam.

Yeow! Farmhound, you sound about as productive as DW's mother back in Lithuania! When we visit there, we're in the middle of a hugh vegetable (mostly potato, cabbage, carrot, and beet) farm. But they also raise a lot of their own meat - chickens, pigs. And they keep a dozen milking cows. They have about an acre and a half of strawberries - about 50 hectares in all on the farm (a hectare is 2.47 acres) with about a third of it in cultivation, plus hay fields.

This time of year, their basement is filling up with jars of food that they'll survive on over the winter.

Very industrious family!

I raised 25 chicks one year. Everything went fine until slaughter day. I hope to never do it again.

Except for the braided garlic and hot pepper ristras, we are eating everything I can grow in my ~500 square feet. Last year I made pickles and froze a few things, but this year's tomato/eggplant harvest was a bust. The cucumbers have already succumbed to powdery mildew- I didn't have time to spray the baking soda mix or do much else. Teaching night school after work two days a week and going to physical therapy on my other free afternoon sucks all the energy out of me, but I'm determined to pay off the wedding loan before the school year ends. Of course, I've got another few looking to get married, but I told them they can wait or get married in the driveway and bar-b-que some chicken for the guests.

We garden year round, different crops each season. I freeze Sugar Snap Peas, broccoli, collards, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, turnips, herbs, okra, carrots, pesto, pasta tomato sauce, chili. I make pickles, dill and bread and butter, mango chutney, pickled jalapenoes. When we get a good crop, potatoes are stored. I love having organic, home grown food stored; makes cooking, in the off season, so easy when the veggies are washed, cut, and ready to go. One of my favorite things is a bag of red, orange, yellow, and green chopped sweet peppers in the freezer. Same for colorful hot pepper mix...Just grab what you need from the zipper bag! I buy fresh produce that I can't grow here, or don't have at the moment; but that stored garden produce is, as Emeril would say, "Food of love."