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Garden Advice

Food Preservation Resources

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Even a small home garden can produce a bounty of food. While this is a wonderful thing, it can be a bit overwhelming. Beyond trying to eat plenty of fresh produce each meal and sharing with friends and family, most gardeners preserve some of the food that they grow. Especially, if you’re new to gardening, food preservation can be intimidating.

Questions like what’s the difference between water bath and pressure canning, how long do you have to blanch green beans, and what the heck is fermentation are all easy to answer, if you know where to look. Here are some great resources to answer all your home food preservation questions.

Food Preservation Websites

Canning Jars (Food Preservation)Ball Mason Jars

Ball Mason Jars have long been experts on all things American food preservation, especially canning. Get started with their Canning & Preserving 101 page and find in depth instructions and recipes to help you safely put up the harvest for months to come. 

Food in Jars

From spicy winter squash soup to nasturtium seed capers and cherry jam, the Food in Jars blog is full of helpful and exciting recipes to fill your pantry. 

National Center for Home Food Preservation

The National Center for Home Food Preservation website now features easy to follow guides and recipes for a wide array of foods and techniques. Learn to can, pickle, freeze, dry, cure, smoke, ferment, and store your harvest safely and easily at home.

Canning Across America

Canning Across America is a “nationwide, ad hoc collective of cooks, gardeners and food lovers committed to the revival of the lost art of “putting by” food.” They have plenty of recipes, guides, and answers to FAQs to help you feel comfortable putting up food.  

Food Preservation Books

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Wild Fermentation (Food Preservation)If you’ve been interested in food preservation or local food for very long, you’ve probably heard of Sandor Katz. He’s well known for popularizing home fermentation and has taught workshops across the US. His book Wild Fermentation, includes about 100 home recipes for fermenting vegetables, beans (ie. Miso), dairy, vegan alternatives, and sourdough and other grain ferments. 

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

We already mentioned the Ball Jars website, but their home preserving book is worth it’s own mention. It has over 400 recipes for classic favorites and 

Root Cellaring by Mike & Nancy Bubel

It wasn’t that long ago that most families stored fresh produce in root cellars. Learn how to build your own and store various crops using the naturally stable temperature with the Bubel’s book, Root Cellaring.

Putting Up: A Year-Round Guide to Canning in the Southern Tradition by Steve Dowdney

This guide provides 65 hand recipes, safety tips, and resources. Author Steve Dowdney also provides “stories and vignettes of a long gone agrarian south that filled the author’s youth and still fills his heart and memory.”

Put ’em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling by Sherri Brooks Vinton

The simple instructions and 175 recipes found in Put ‘em Up! Will help you use your fresh produce and fill your pantry. Learn to can, freeze, air-dry, oven-dry, pickle, and refrigerate food. 

Your Local Agricultural Extension Office

Local Extension agencies typically have a plethora of home gardening and food preservation resources. They’re often connected with a local university and stay up date on the latest safe techniques. 

Find an Extension Office Near your zip code here.

Food preservation doesn’t have to be scary! These home food preservation resources are great places for new and seasoned gardeners alike to find recipes, instructions, and helpful tips to put up their harvest. 

Garden Advice

Putting Up Produce the Old Ways: Fermenting, Drying, and Cellaring

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For the modern gardener keeping a surplus harvest means blanching and freezing or canning. These methods certainly have their virtues but it’s important to remember they’re not your only options. For hundreds of years humans put up their harvests without the aid of modern canning jars or electricity.

For some in areas with frequent power outages or off grid houses freezing produce may not be the best option. Canning, especially pressure canning, can be relatively time and energy intensive. Plus fermenting, drying, and cellaring all have their own benefits.

Fermenting

It sounds a little weird but fermented food may be some of your healthiest preserves. Fermented food has lacto-bacteria that has been shown to improve gut flora. Your gut flora is important to your digestion but new studies have also shown gut flora to be an important facet of your overall health.

Easy fermented foods include pickles, kraut, and kimchi but nearly any vegetable can be fermented. Check out this post for a more in depth look at fermenting vegetables.   

Drying

Drying or dehydrating produce is probably one of the easiest methods of preserving produce and it can be much less energy intensive than canning or freezing but still keep for a very long time. Dried produce can be eaten as snacks or rehydrated for use in soups and stews during the winter months. It’s also great lightweight food for families who enjoy camping or backpacking.

Before electricity was available drying food was mostly used a preservation method in warm, arid climates where food could be quickly dried outside before it rotted. Today you can find many plans online for solar dehydrators which will help those in more humid climates achieve the same effect. Thankfully for those in really humid areas or without a passion for DIY projects there are tons of electric dehydrators available on the market and most are very affordable.

Cellaring

Don’t skip this section just because you don’t have a root cellar! There’s many ways to store produce fresh even if you live in a small apartment. Check out this post, How to Store Crops Without a Root Cellar for our best ideas.

A lot of produce can be kept fresh in storage including onions, carrots, beets, turnips, winter squash, even cabbage and brussels sprouts! Cellaring is a method in which heirlooms will often have the advantage. As many were bred when people put up all or much their own food heirlooms often have some of the best storage abilities. Keep this in mind this winter as you’re choosing varieties.

Succession Planting

For anyone who dreads spending time preserving a great way to avoid a lot of food preservation altogether is to use succession planting. This is when you start plants at different intervals so that they’re ready at different times. Rather than planting all your green beans in one day plant a row or two (depending on your family’s size) one day and then plant again in a few weeks. This will spread your harvest out over a longer period of time ensuring you can enjoy more of it fresh!

For more tips check out, Succession Planting 101.

These methods may be old but they’re still awesome! Fermenting, drying, and cellaring can help you avoid food waste and keep healthy, local food continuously available.

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