We start off spring growing like a runner at the starting line when the sound of the pistol is heard. We go out everyday staring at the barren soil with pure excitement waiting for that first tiny bit of green to pop up out of the ground. We pace near our plants started indoors, so neatly placed at the window waiting for the average lows to get high enough to put them out. We stress about our seedling babies getting root bound, that green soil fungus, spider mites. It’s all fun, nostalgic, magical… until July. All those beloved plants are now giants turning the garden into an impenetrable jungle. The weeds so plenty it’s nearly impossible to separate them from the plants that bear us food. The mosquitos, the ticks, the chiggers, the oppressive humidity and heat. And yet, just like every spring, we vowed this year, nothing will be wasted. With enough cucumbers to start a pickle company and more cherry tomatoes than anyone on earth could ever eat, this blog began writing itself in my mind. So, here we go!
1-PRESERVE
Can, freeze and dehydrate. There is nothing more satisfying than going down to the basement in the coldest days of winter and grabbing a few cans of vegetables that were canned the summer before. Zucchini, cucumbers, summer squash, berries, onions and green peppers really shouldn’t be canned, but can be frozen. We freeze shredded zucchini for breads, dice, blanch and freeze summer squash, cook then freeze pumpkin (which is also great for dogs) and pickle cucumbers. Quick note on freezing, you don’t need to blanch berries, onions and green peppers. Just cut them up, put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer for a few hours then use a spatula to move them into a freezer bag or container.
Nearly all your other vegetables and fruits can be either frozen or canned. Almost anything can be pickled. Dehydrating can be a bit trickier but can also be a great way to make snackable preserved food. Herbs can be dried and ground for cooking and tea.
It is also worth mentioning that come the holidays, there is nothing wrong with putting together a basket of things that you have preserved. A jar of homemade pickles, jam and some mint tea can make a wonderful gift.
2-EAT
If you have a bumper crop of anything, such as our cucumbers have been this year you might have to get creative. Use them in salads, slice and refrigerate for 24 hours with onions and vinegar (we prefer ranch dressing), use in sandwiches, or just on a plate in slices and spears. Incorporate that extra food into daily meals, pack them in lunch boxes, get online and try a new recipe. Eating seasonally makes sense and leads to less waste. We associate asparagus with spring and apples with fall. Seasonal foods give us something to look forward to, to wait for. Sure, you can get anything almost anytime from the store, but patience has its rewards.
3-SAVE
As you preserve and eat, save those seeds! A squash got left too long in the refrigerator? Remove and save the seeds before it leaves the house. You do take the chance that some of your seeds were cross pollinated, however we’ve never grown anything we didn’t love from saved seeds.
4-TRADE
About all those cucumbers and cherry tomatoes… What we didn’t do well with this year was large tomatoes. One plant died out after only producing two tomatoes and the other two have been slow in growing actual fruit. Some friends of ours had the opposite situation. They have around twenty plants growing huge, wonderful tomatoes, but didn’t grow many cucumbers. With a trade, we now have tomato sauce in our basement and they have pickles in theirs. If you still have too much of something, give it away. There are a lot of people who would love to have it. It is also worth noting that waste can come later.
Just because you have enough cukes to make 100 jars of pickles doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. We might eat a dozen jars of them a year. Canning enough for two years is okay as long as you’re eating the older food first, but canning a decade worth of food usually ends up in waste. We’ve found those jars of iffy veggies and ended up dumping them in compost to reuse the jars. Food has become expensive and there’s a good chance that will only get worse. Plus, most of it is grown with chemicals. Our own food is cheaper and healthier. That said, I’m not entirely confident that an extra hoard of pickles will matter if Yellowstone blows or we get hit by a meteor.
5-FEED/COMPOST
Chickens can have pretty much any vegetable you can except for beans. If a vegetable is too far gone or if you don’t have animals to give it to, compost it. Those nutrients can feed next year’s garden. Also, don’t get too down on yourself when you miss harvesting something, nothing is really going to waste. I missed several green beans and a few cucumbers so far. They’ll naturally compost, become bug food and likely come back as volunteers in the spring.
Audrey L Elder
Fourteen Acre Wood
Great write up as always!