It used to be all that I’d preserve was tomatoes. After a few years of that I started freezing apples and peaches that I’d purchased by the bushel. When we moved to our current property we were loaded with wild blackberries, so preserves and jams obviously had to go on the list.
Now, after almost 10 years of canning, freezing, and putting by for the winter, we have a pretty good stash of goodies that help us get through until it’s time to start harvesting wild and gardened foods again. This year we put up tomatoes, chow chow, several types of fruit preserves, honey & pecans, chutney, pear and lemon preserves. We froze roasted red peppers, squash, and pumpkins, as well as a half of a pig we processed ourselves. We have onions, potatoes, winter squash, and sugar pumpkins in dry storage, and we recently joined a meat CSA. We also have dried herbs for seasonings and teas – things like sumac berries, lemon balm, and mints. And finally, I managed to save some of those wines that I brewed (hic).
I almost feel like we’ll be cheating for this year’s Real Food Challenge (Don’t forget to sign up if you’ll be joining us)!
So, of those of you that will be playing along this next month – what will you be falling back on that you “put by” this past year? Do you mainly can, freeze, use a dry storage system like a cellar? Or will you have to start from scratch and pick up your supplies from stores and growers?
You can also find Jennifer blarging away at Unearthing This Life. There she rambles on about chickens, organic food, gardening, and living in rural Tennessee.
Not Dabbling In Normal 
We had a run of greens from our CSA that I froze, so we’ll definitely be diving into those. I only recently started canning, and all I managed to put up last year was about 10 pounds of pickled okra! Lol. We will definitely be better utilizing our CSA, farmers market and self-food-preserving this coming year.
I’m thinking about it along the lines of the Growing Challenge–every year I try to plant something I’ve never tried before. It gets more challenging each year, and this year my growing challenge is a berry patch. For Eat Real Food, I’ll have to think about this– I have the same problem you do. I already eat pretty real. So I think this year the challenge will be getting the next generation on board. They “get” it but find it incompatible with their lifestyles. So my real food challenge I guess is getting the kids (22 and 25) to cook.
Willamette Valley here. We had one of our worst garden years in 35 continuous years of gardening — summer held off until July. But two apple trees did well, so, solar-dried apple leathers, apple sauce, apple butter, frozen apples, canned apple juice. We did put up some tomato puree and salsa and chutney, grape juice, grape wine, and mixed dehydrated veg leaves, which, crumbled, make a nutritious seasoning. Frozen vegs, blackberry jam, many quarts of frozen blackberries, blueberries, and rhubarb. Some surplus drakes. one lamb. Trout. And we stored lotsa, lotsa potatoes. In the ground there are still more potatoes, sunchokes, chard, beets, collards, kale; and there is usable garlic, rosemary, chives, celery, parsley, sage, and cilantro. Lavendar, too, which Queen Elizabeth I liked to nibble, and so do I. From previous years there’s vinegar, homebrew, applesauce, and tomato puree not yet used up. But, oh, for another good tomato year and sun-dried tomatoes!
I do can, and dry homegrown food, I also have two big freezers that I fill up, and my cold hoop house greens are starting to show signs that soon I will be able to start picking and harvesting again.
My challange is going to be to start grinding more of my own grains and cooking out of my stores that I have in house or on the farm for the month.
I have tons and tons of potatoes. The longer I garden the more I try to focus on things I don’t have to do anything to. I still can tomatoes, tomato soup, jams, jellies and relishes – but we’re relying more on squash, pumpkin, potatoes and the green we can grow in the cold frame in the winter.
Mr Chiots hunts so this year we’re lucky enough to have 3 deer tucked away in the freezer along with offals for dog food.
One thing I really want to learn to grow/raise for myself are mushrooms – we love mushrooms and eat tons of them. I also really want to get chickens. If I can do both of these things in the next couple years it will help us save a good amount on our grocery bill.
I have canned for most of my 40 year marriage. I just started doing meat the past two years. What a convenience. I can beef, chicken and venison. I also do Stew, stroganoff and chilli. Makes for an easy supper after a long day.
This is the first year our apple tree produced and I put up sauce as well as juice. My grandchildrens preference is pear sauce.
I would be all for canning soups and beans if I’d finally break down and purchase a pressure canner. I’m always cursing myself for not thinking ahead and putting beans on early enough!
We made pear sauce for the first time this year and loved it!
My goals this garden season is to have enough to preserve things. Specifically tomato sauces and zucchini relish. Other things I hope to freeze and dry. I keep learning more each year and would like to get to the point where I can grow enough to eat, can, freeze and dry and if there is left overs – share. Emily
I love the sharing aspect of extras. This year we had enough to go around for holiday gifts. As for zucchini relish – I haven’t tried that one, it sounds tasty!
Sharing is great. Zucchini relish is great too. I find we mainly use it as a spread on sandwiches. I will make myself a note to do a post on it.
We always do tomatoes (sauce, paste, dried), roast & freeze hot peppers, canned roasted bell peppers, applesauce, various fruit jams, dried peaches & cherries, salsas, freeze whole fresh tomatillos, fresh picked cherries pitted and frozen, lots of all different types of winter squash stored in a cold room in the basement, onions & garlic stored there too, pickled eggs.
Summer of 2009 we went in on some meat chickens that our friend raised on her urban farm and we helped harvest them and got 12 to put up in our freezer (they lasted us a bit more than a year). Last fall we got 15lbs of grass-fed pork and 15lbs. of grass-fed beef from a local sustainable farm. We’re not big meat eaters, so that will last us about 6 months.
Looking to possibly build a root cellar so we can store more food for longer, as even out cold basement room is a bit too warm for some things.