HARVEST, CANNING, AND PRESERVING

By Wendy Sue

Copyright ©2012 by Wendy Sue

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Harvesting the Crop

Drying Out Herbs and Plants

Canning

Vacuum Sealing and Freezing

Enjoy the Reading. Be sure to order all of these fine books.

Book 1 – Starting Your Organic Garden in the City

Book 2 – When, Where, and What to Plant

Book 3 – Introduction to Indoor Gardening

Book 4 – Dealing with Pest and Disease Naturally

Book 5 – Harvest, Canning, and Preserving

Book 6 – Master Collection

Introduction

One of my favorite times of the year is the fall. I love this part of the season; the air is crisp, kids are going back to school, and harvest time is just starting. This is one of the most exciting times of the year. The big holidays are just around the corner and everyone is busy getting ready for the change of the season.

Back when I was in Minnesota, the signs of fall were extremely important for us in the area. This meant we needed to start to prepare for the winter months and start stocking up on food. See, in the northern regions of the US and Canada, life in the wintertime can be a bit rough. Wintertime is long and harsh with frigid temperatures. Snow can pile up over the roof of a one story home. You just do not go out to the grocery store and buy what you need in the areas where I grew up. To make your way into town, it was a planned event!

Let me paint the picture a little better. When I was growing up in the area, we lived a few miles outside of town. All of the roads outside of the area are just seasonal roads, so the only means of travel was by snowmobile. When a trip was planned, we would go outside and clear a path to the shed. This meant having about an hour worth of shoveling (pending on how deep the snow) to create a walkway. Our family was lucky to have a pair of snowmobiles to take into town, if not we would be walking the four to five miles into town by snowshoe! After the shoveling is done, we ride into town. In town, we buy what we needed and stuff it into a backpack or place it on a plastic sled the snowmobiles would tow. We would usually top off on gas and head back home. This would take about half of the day to accomplish and we were actually close to town!

Can you imagine what it would be like to live ten to twenty miles out in the wilderness? You would have to rely on living off the land and storing up for the winter. Well, pretty much that is what we did. In order to get through the tough winter months, we would build up a supply of everything to make it through. Canning, freezing, smoking, and drying out food is a way of life where I grew up.

One of my favorite stories of preserving and canning goes back to my childhood. Every year around mid-July, my family would plan on going on a pick. We would all go out and gather wild raspberries for making homemade jam. My mother could make the most amazing raspberry jelly and preserves and it was considered a treat to have a sandwich with this on it. More or less, it also was an excellent way to pack lunches for the year. I am still amazed that I never got tired of peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwiches.

Therefore, typically wild raspberries grow in dry places usually in large groups. Around where I grew up raspberries tend to grow along side of the road. As a family, we would walk alongside the dirt roads hunting for raspberries. We had quite a few places where the wild bushes grew in large clumps. Now everyone else in town picked raspberries as well, so you have to figure out where they were not cleaned out already.

We would jump into the back my dad’s old truck and run up and down some of the dirt roads looking for berries. We would go to our secret spots where the berries were plenty and pretty good. We would pick for the whole day and try to fill up our old coffee cans with berries.

One particular year it was very dry out. This is bad because the raspberries need some water to produce fruit. We hit our first spot looking for berries. Nothing. Struck out. We moved on to the next area along side of the road and found a few here and there. This is clearly going to be a rough year.

“Ok. Gang, get back into the truck, we can give the camp a try” dad announces as we gather back into the bed of the truck. My sisters, brother, and I were desperate to find berries this particular afternoon. A few miles down there are a state park and campground where the river cuts through it. This is a very nice place for people to camp and fish the river for trout, but it has a secret to it. In the back of the campground, there is a nice low-lying area that holds plenty of water and hides one of the biggest raspberry patches I’ve seen.

We pull into an open area of the campground. Dad would always park on the far side of the lot to allow the anglers to park their boats and trailers. We would be right up against the riverbank and walk across the parking lot. Just behind two old wooden outhouses sat the biggest berry patch we have ever seen. It was partially obscured by the pine trees, which kept it hidden from the campers in the park. This was our honey-hole for getting prize berries and we always were successful here.

As the truck came to a halt, we began to shuffle out of the bed. All of the sudden, we hear a noise coming from over by the berry patch. I was already half way across the parking lot and heard the low growl coming from the area by the raspberries. “GGGRRRRRRRR”. It stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Bear!” my sister squeaked out as we stood still for the moment. Right then, all of us were in full retreat back to the truck.

“Grrrrrrrrrrr” still could be heard. I was not going to waste any time, I flew back to the bed of the truck. Dad had a confused look on his face, but was not going to contest a hungry bear. He crept back into the truck.

We still could not see the bear anywhere in the berry patch. All we could hear is the low-lying growl of the beast hidden somewhere in our berries.

“GRRRRRRRRRRRRR” once again rang out from the area. By experience, we all know it is best to just leave the thing alone and let it snack on the raspberries.

We still could not see where the bear was inside or around the berry patch. My father was ready to stop for the day and try again sometime later.

“GRRRRRRR” rang out again in the area. We were all terrified where this bear is, and ready to leave.

Just then, one of the doors to the outhouses swings open! A large, bearded grizzly of a man emerged, sweat beaded on this forehead. He looks at us rather confused and embarrassed, looks at the ground, and walks off down the road to his campsite.

We all just stood there and laughed so hard. I have never seen my father turn that deep of a red in laughter and possibly embarrassment. Here the poor man is having quite a bit of trouble on the privy, finally comes out and sees a truck load of kids staring at him!

I have never laughed so hard in my life! That was one of our funniest, most memorable harvests my family will never forget.

In this book, we will look at how we process our harvest to store for the long months. You might not have to stock up as we once did for the winter, but I am sure you want to enjoy the harvest from the garden throughout the year.

Harvesting the Crop

Harvesting is a time-honored tradition where most of the crops grown through the summer are finally mature and ready to be sold or eaten. This typically happens around the fall where everyone is preparing for the winter months. Over the summer growing season, locals and farmers work hard on building up their produce to sell or harvest for the year. During this time, you can hunt through the local markets to get fresh produce made by locals. This is my preferred way to buying produce is through the local people. I am fine with major chain stores, but I really don’t know where the produce is coming from. Sometimes, these stores are stocked with great fruit and vegetables, but they all were shipped in from places like Bolivia. I would rather grow my own or buy local.

Now harvest time is a bit different when you are growing an organic garden like the one we have mentioned in the previous books. Indoor gardens are different because you can make this work for you all year around. If you have lived in a cold climate before, you know how hard it is to find good produce in the dead of winter. An indoor garden is your savior to the cold hard winter bearing down on you. I love my indoor garden because it gives me a hobby, produces my own food, and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

In this section, we want to talk about harvesting the crop. What I want to do is give an idea and a neat trick to planting and harvesting all the time with our indoor gardens. I use this technique to this day, even though I live a moderate climate. I still like growing my garden and producing vegetables all the time. I use a trick called “Staggered Pick”. Let me show you how it’s done.

Staggered Pick

One of the harvesting techniques I use at home is the staggered pick. This all begins when you are ready to start planting your garden. The staggered gardens are excellent for indoor use that you can possibly grow over a great length of time. I personally love them because I can harvest a few fresh veggies every so often. When I was in Minnesota, this was nice in the dead of wintertime being able to pick and harvest fresh vegetables.

Here is how the Staggered Pick works for the indoor gardens: You start with the choice of plants to start. I love to grow a variety of lettuce including Black-seeded Simpson, Red Sails, Buttercrunch, and Romaine. All of the lettuce families are easy to grow indoors. They are easy to germinate from seed, and they grow without too much maintenance. Once the plants start to germinate, I use a grow light to bring them to full maturity.

Here is the trick to this indoor project; you only plant a few seeds at a time. In week one, I will plant all four of the variety of each type. Here is the trick, I will only plant and germinate three plants of each type. I will wait about two weeks and plant another three plants of seeds of each type. I do this again and again for about twelve weeks. This is the staggered approach.

How this works now is the plants will reach maturity in about sixty to seventy days. So, the first bunch will get big enough to harvest. Back in Minnesota, I would time it just right be starting my indoor garden around October. Soon December was rolling around and getting access to fresh vegetables was hard. My salad garden (as I called it) is ready and in full maturity by midmonth. There could be three feet of snow outside and I did not even care, I was busy getting ready to harvest my first block of plants!

When the lettuce is about to full maturity, the first block should be ready to harvest. You can then pick all four plants of leaves for your first fresh from the garden salad! Now, this type of lettuce is great at full maturity because you can just pick enough for a meal and the plant will grow back some of the leaves. You can harvest a small portion at a time, just enough for a meal through the two weeks.

I found that about after two weeks, I was using up that block of plants and the first harvest would be over. If you remember, I staggered my germination of seeds by two weeks, so the next block of plants will be nearing maturity when I have completely used up the first. This works out perfect on timing and harvest. I just move on to the next block and repeat. Overall, by staggering each block of lettuce, I was able to have my garden salad through the entire winter month.

I no longer live in Minnesota, but I still plant and grow my salad garden every year. I am a creature of habit; I will be the first to admit it. I do have access to fresh vegetables during the winter months where I live at now. Here in California, we have a steady growing season all year around. I could get much of my produce through the market or store, but even during the off-season who knows where it comes from. I try to buy local all the time, but even in the chain stores, I don’t know where the produce is coming from. I don’t know if it was organically grown. I don’t know if there was harmful chemicals used. I trust one place for produce, which is my own garden!

Drying Out Herbs and Plants

Drying out plants and herbs is a great way to keep longevity to your harvest of the garden. Did you know by drying the plants out you could keep these good for almost two years? The drying process recommended for herb plants like Cilantro, Basil, Oregano, etc. I can think of a few others that are herb related like various plants used in tea I have done in the past as well.

I love growing my own herbs and drying them out. If you love to cook, growing your own herbs and using them in a wonder meal gives you a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. It is a great feeling being able to stock up on spices and herbs in the kitchen. I have a rather large spice rack that came with me from Minnesota that keeps herbs I use stocked for quite some time. Remember, I tend to go through the Basils, Oreganos, and Parsley all the time because I love me some Italian cooking! Ha!

Here is my first little nugget of ideas for you that actually invented by my mom years ago. As a family, we went through spices quite a bit. To stock up we grew and dried out our own herbs and spices. Now, we had a normal spice rack located in the kitchen where we could easily reach for something while cooking. My mother needed extra room for storage, so she built a shelf overhead lined Mason Canning Jars all across it. She used the small pint jars and arranged them in an orderly fashion on this shelf. It looked decorative, but also it would store the large sum of dried out herbs and spices we would get. These would last nice in the canning jars because it was air tight, and once you dry out the herbs, there is no water to spoil them. I have something close to that rack, but I store my large harvest of dried herbs in stainless steel canisters that seal up.

I grow herbs in my patio garden. I usually have about a half dozen different herbs growing in a four by four foot planter. I usually start the plants from seed around late spring (May) and let them grow to maturity. We harvest in the late summer once the plants get to maturity. I will completely pull up the plants, roots and all during the harvest to start to prepare them for drying.

I pull the plants out of the soil because if you just cut the plant to harvest, you leave the roots. The roots can potentially stay in the ground for quite some time. What will happen is a potential for the roots to start to rot out in the soil. This can cause the ground to become contaminated.

The second reason is to ensure the plant will not go to seed. I have seen my friends go on a week vacation and her Basil plant turned to seed while gone. Well, when these went to seed guess what happened? It contaminated all of her garden with the seeds! Next thing you know, she was getting Basil in all of her potted plants!

Dehydrators

When drying out the leaves of the plants there are a few ways to do it. There are dehydrators you can purchase that will do the job. You can find these at various stores for around $45 to $300 in price. I was given a nice little countertop dehydrator as a present. They are nice, but limited in space. You will not be drying out large swaths of plants, but portions at a time. The little dehydrators are nice because it is convenient. You can just place the food in the dehydrator, turn it on, and walk away.

I like the dehydrators because they are really easy to use and convenient. The drawback of them is the small size of them, or if you go larger, they tend to get very expensive (around $400, Ouch!).

Sun Dry Box

Let me quickly explain what a sun box is. Do you love things like Sun Dried Tomatoes? Those are one of my favorites! I found the idea on a website and figured since I am in a moderate climate in California, a Sun Drying Box made perfect sense. Well, I have to tell you it was well worth the effort to build!

What the sun-drying box is all about is the ability to use the sun to collect heat and the rays to dry out things inside it. This works great doing things from tomatoes to basil. I love to pick a tomato off one of the potted plants. I’ll cut it into quarters and then put kosher salt on it. I can put that into the sun-drying box in the morning and by dinnertime, I have a completely dried out tomato. These are so tasty on various recipes, but they are wonderful in salads. It gives the salad that extra punch of flavor! The sundry box is great because all you do it put the thing you want to dry out into the box and walk away. The box is cheap to build, and cheap to dry out things because you does not use power.

Here’s what you need to build the sun box:

A few 2x4 pieces of wood

Window screen (screen mesh)

Plexi-glass precut into 2’ and 2” by 2’2” size.

Black paint.

Brass Hinge

First, you can take a 2 x 4 board and cut it with a saw. Cut the 2x4 board into equal 4 pieces about 2 feet in size. You can go bigger if you want to put more into the sundry box. Next, cut a 2x4 into 4 equal pieces about 6 inches in size.

Take the 2-foot pieces and assemble into a box. This is the walls of the sun box. You can use either glue or nails. I actually used wood screws. They work really well. Next, you will want to paint the frame all black.

Once the paint dries, you will start with the screen. Cut the screen so that it will completely cover the bottom of the frame. So, the size of the screen should 2’2” by 2’2”. You can glue or staple it into the frame. I used staples from a gun my neighbor had, that worked the best.

Next you will take the 6 inch pieces of the 2x4 and attach that like legs in each corner of the frame. You will have to place these over the top of the screen. What you want is the screen to be the bottom of the box, then the legs will keep the screen about 6 inches off the ground.

Finally. This is optional. I used a small brass hinge I picked up from the local hardware store for the lid. The lid is your plexiglass piece. I was able to have mine cut at the hardware store for me. You can find people to do that for you. It is difficult to cut this if you do not have the right saw for it. I attached the hinge to the Plexi and the wood frame to make a nice hinging top to the box.

The box itself will have that nice Plexi glass lid to allow the sun to come through and traps the heat in the box. The screen is where you will put the food or herbs to dry out. This works to keep air and help dry the food, but also keeps animals and bugs off the herbs and food. The legs help keep the box off the ground by a few inches.

Drying in the Oven

I do use my sundry box quite often to make great food and dry out things like tomatoes, apples, and apricots. However, as in most places the weather is never predictable. I don’t have the luxury of waiting on the weather to cooperate. During the cooler months (winter), it simple does not get hot enough to produce the heat to evaporate all the water out of the sundry box. So, what is the next best thing?

I use my oven.

When want to dry out things like herbs so we can store them long term, I learned to dry things from my family. My grandmother used to use a wooden stove and take small charcoals to keep a low temperature to “bake” the herbs and dry them out.

I just use my oven to dry herbs and food out. Here is what you do:

Take a cookie sheet and place the herbs down individually on the sheet. Make sure each is flat and sorted out to be all by them. Set the oven to about 200 to 250 (low temp.) and bake. This will slowly heat the plants and herbs, but it won’t burn them.

The drying out process in the oven will take about 4 to 6 hours to completely dry it out. Don’t heat up too much trying to take a short cut, it will burn the leaves.

I like using the oven over most things because I can control the heat, and watch it closely. Also, I really like the fact that I have multiple trays I can use to do a large batch of leaves.

Once everything is dried out, I will take them and crush up the herbs into fine pieces or powder. I have a mortar and pestle that works great for grinding the herbs into fine pieces. You can find one like this at a specialty kitchen shop. After I grind up the pieces, I will place the herbs into my stainless steel storage containers to refill my years’ worth of herbs.

Someone asked me once, why you go through this? How much money do you save by this? Well first, I do this for fun as a hobby, but I do have to say I save probably $50 a year in natural herbs.

Canning

Canning is one of the ways to preserve your foods from the garden. The goal of canning is to get rid of things on the food like bacteria, molds, and yeasts. You want to reduce the active food enzymes and reaction to oxygen. Another goal of canning is to preserve the food without drying it out or giving it freezer burn. Many people prefer canning to freezing food because of taste. I personally like both, I grew up on canning and I love the taste of veggies that are correctly frozen.

When we have something to harvest from our garden, we have to ensure we follow the right common rules to preserving. If you don’t do it right, there’s a good chance you can contaminate the food.

I have a good war story about canning improperly. Awhile back, I had a neighbor that lived in my apartment complex. She was very young, just recently out of college. She just took a job downtown in an office environment, and she was getting used to city life. She was um. Unique. She was one of those “hipsters” who I had run into occasionally walking back from the farmers market. I got to chitchat with her a bit walking back from the market. She explained that she was a diehard vegan, and was complaining how you can’t find good produce around anywhere.

As we were talking, I noticed she had a large amount of broccoli heads she purchased and was carrying back to the apartment complex. I asked, “What’s with the broccoli?” She proudly explained she was going to can a whole year’s worth of vegetables. “Have you ever canned anything before?” She had a quizzical look on her face after I asked that, as if I was going to interrogate her or look down on her. She explained never had canned before, but found how to do it on the website Pinterest. “I found some canning jars and a large pot I can boil them in”. Since she did not know my experience, I mentioned you really need a pressure canner to do Broccoli. She just laughed, “Ah, I have this. It looks really easy, and they really explained it well on Pinterest”. She must have thought I was some old crazy cat woman or something trying to give advice.

A few weeks later, my neighbor from the other side and myself were enjoying some tea. She always loves to stop by on Thursday afternoons for a cup and some local gossip. As our conversation drifted between our one neighbor having an affair to the price of sugar.

After a bit of chitchat, my neighbor mentions “Did you hear about that nice young girl over on the other side?” “She fell got really sick and was rushed to the hospital two days ago”. I was surprised, but then I remembered her plans to preserve broccoli. “Let me guess, she had acute food poising”. My neighbor was aghast that I guess correct. “Yes, you are exactly right, how…how did you know?” Therefore, the morale to the story is: Listen to your elders and don’t believe everything you read on the internet. (grin).

We want to be sure that when canning, that we do the right thing to prevent problems. There are some common practices that you need to do to ensure proper persevering of the food. Here’s some general points about canning you want to know:

You need to be sure to completely wash the food.

Some fruits may need to be peeled.

Some foods need to be hot packed.

Sometimes you will need to add acidic juices to help preserve the food.

You must use good canning jars with lids that will completely seal.

Processing the jars in hot bath boiling water or under a pressure canner.

All of these steps are vital to ensure you have a good preservation of food.

I have been doing canning over the years and learned from my mother how to do it. She taught me what to do through years of experience. I learned what to do because I was doing it at an early age. Since I don’t cover everything in this chapter, I thought I’d give you a link to the guide that has most fruits, nuts, meats, and vegetables in it. This is part of the recommendations by the USDA on the government home site. I am adding the link below:

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/INTRO%20section%20Home%20Can.pdf

This link will give you the table of content and the document, which describes each individual foodstuff that can be canned. This shows you how to can stuff properly with temperatures, additives, and step-by-step instructions. If you have some sort of food that you are unsure how to can, this guide will give you the right direction on it. This will keep from having to take a chance without knowing. Believe it or not, I have actually used this a few times to check on things. I came across a question about canning a rutabaga root. “Ummmmm” was my best response. Now I just used something similar to it, like the potato in the guide to help give the best advice to preserve the root.

Once you have attempted to can things you need check your work. There are a few things you can do to inspecting the preserved things you have canned. Here is a little walk through that the USDA asks on their report “Complete Guide to Home Canning”:

Do Your Canned Foods Pass This Test?

Overall appearance

Good proportion of solid to liquid

Full pack with proper headspace

Liquid just covering solid

Free of air bubbles

Free of imperfections—stems, cores, seeds

Good seals

Practical pack that is done quickly and easily

Fruit and vegetables

Pieces uniform in size and shape

Characteristic, uniform color

Shape retained—not broken or mushy

Proper maturity

Liquid or syrup

Clear and free from sediment

If you content can pass the USDA checklist, you should be ok with your preserves. Canning is not a difficult process; you just need to know the right combination of things for each individual food you are trying to preserve. I could go into each individual food item and mention how to can each one, but this book would never end or I would still be writing each one. Once you know what you are going to preserve, just refer to the USDA guide on canning. This gives you the best input for each food item you want to preserve.

Vacuum Sealing and Freezing

Unbelievably, I am actually a fan of frozen vegetables. My mother used to freeze vegetables in an old coffee can. This would entrap them into a solid block of ice to keep the air from reaching it, and stave off freezer burn. Now I look back at it when I am older, I am surprised that that worked so well.

Freezing and sealing the harvest is a way to preserve things for a length of time. What happens is the cold of freezing them slows down or stops the various reactions going on. You have things like bacteria that begin to break down the food, sugars and starches do not start to break down, etc. This allows the food to stay longer and not spoil anything.

One question many people ask about freezing food is how long is the shelf life of it? Here is a quick tip and guide on the life inside the freezer:

For fruits and sugar-based foods, the total time is about 1 year.

For green vegetables, the total self-life is about 2 years.

For vegetables that are root based, these last about 1 year.

Freezing Vegetables in Containers

One of the critical things for freezing foods is the choice of containers to use. The container should be easy to seal up tight and not allow any moisture inside it. If the container leaks and allows moisture, the items will get frostbite quickly and ruin the taste. What brand or container to be used is strictly up to you, but remember to consider the size of the item, and what are readily available.

Containers that you can use to freeze vegetables include plastic Tupperware type that can seal. There are flexible freezer bags or even use glass canning jars. Finally, an ideal choice is the vacuum sealer bag which we will discuss later.

Blanching

Blanching is a process which will you scald the vegetables in hot water to help preserve them. By exposing the plant to the hot water, it halts all of the enzymes being produced and sugars breaking down. I called it “precooking”.  By precooking it, the vegetables do not lose their texture, color or flavor when you freeze it. In the past I have tried to freeze Green Beans directly without doing this, what happened were the beans shriveled up. They did not taste good at all when I cooked them. Lessons learned, next time you blanch them!

Blanching is very critical and getting the total time to expose the vegetables to the hot water is important. Not enough exposure, the plant will start to release the enzymes and make the condition of it worse than not blanching. If you over blanch the veggies, you will lose taste and color and the vitamins inside the food.

There are two different types of blanching. You can do boiling water or hot steam. You will use a large pot to cook or steam the foods. Steam blanching takes about 1 and a half times more to blanch properly.

Once you Blanch in the hot, you have to immediately take it out of the hot bath and put this into a cold bath. The cold bath will shock the vegetable and completely stop all of the enzyme production, thus preserving the food. You will want to keep the water bath under 60 degrees with cold ice water. Cooling the vegetables will take the equal time in blanching them in the hot water or steam bath.

So what is the exact time for each type of vegetables you plan on blanching? Here is a link below to a chart that shows the exact times for each area.

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uga/uga_freeze_veg.pdf

In this paper published by University of Georgia, they list every vegetable that you can freeze and prepare for long storage. If you have a question about the food you are freezing, this document is good at telling you the processing and times.

Vacuum Sealing

There have been all sorts of vacuum sealing products for many years on the market. I remember when we used just plastic bags to seal in the vegetables. As the demand and technology got better, the vacuum sealer began to show up on the market. This was expensive at first, I was checking out a few of them and was like “No thanks, I’ll use my old coffee cans over this”. After a few years, the prices for these sealers have come down to a reasonable price. I was given mine for a Christmas gift. I was impressed with it, and I used it for a few months. When I ran out of the freezer bags I went looking for them, and I had trouble finding them! On top of that, they were expensive! Over time, the bags have become available at many different stores. I still think they are a bit pricey, but the quality of the foodstuff they preserve is wonderful.

So, what is special about the vacuum sealers? These are great for keeping food without letting any moisture inside the food. This keeps the vegetables from becoming freezer burnt. I have broken open a package of cauliflower and it tasted like I just picked it from the farm.

The function of this works by using a heat strip and sealing off one end of the bag. When you put the other end into the vacuum area, it will suck out all the air in the bag and around the foodstuff. The vacuum bag will literally collapse around the food and seal it in as all of the air leaves the bag. Then you use the heat strip on the device and seal the other end of the bag.

The advantage of using the vacuum sealer is extending the life of the food. Once you remove all of the air around the food that you plan to freeze, you have less of a chance to get freezer burnt. I would estimate that this works so well, it extended the life of the time in the freezer by about two additional years.

Ok.. I hope this section was extremely helpful. Harvesting, canning, and preserving foods allow us to enjoy home grown for an extended amount of time. I pointed out how you can keep a garden over the cold months of winter using a staggered approach. Canning and freezing allows us to keep food over time and enjoy it later in the upcoming months.

Good luck with your canning and preserving!

Wendy Sue is from California and has traveled all over the world looking and helping Peoria design their ideal homes. Her number one hobby is creating gardens that are edible and beautiful for people. She has specialized in developing beautiful and stylistic essence with the overall practicality of the organic garden.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Harvesting the Crop

Drying Out Herbs and Plants

Canning

Vacuum Sealing and Freezing