Food Preservation

[IassaFTots]

I am a novice gardener, currently I am growing lettuce in my sun room, that I will be eating soon.  I have plans for an outdoor garden this spring/summer.  My BF has been successful with hydroponic gardens in the past few years.  Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, and Squash.  This year I am planning for good yield, supplemented by farmers market stands. 

I have done well with blanching and freezing most vegetables.  I am thinking about venturing into canning this year. 

What advice do any of you have?

[vesta111]

I am a novice gardener, currently I am growing lettuce in my sun room, that I will be eating soon.  I have plans for an outdoor garden this spring/summer.  My BF has been successful with hydroponic gardens in the past few years.  Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, and Squash.  This year I am planning for good yield, supplemented by farmers market stands. 

I have done well with blanching and freezing most vegetables.  I am thinking about venturing into canning this year. 

What advice do any of you have?

Iassa, first I have had an interest in Hydroponic growing for years after seeing what the Boston Museum of Science has for an exhibit.

Cost by cost what is cheaper to do to grow veges or herbs?  Earth vi Water.  Instead of being out side in the heat hoeing weeds and fighting bugs and airborn bacteria, and wild life destroying the garden, what is the work load for an inside growing area.? 

I have some associates that do can, it needs much attention to sterilizing the equipment.  It takes a labor of love to can vegetables, heat and much steam in the kitchen on the hot days of the year.  Then finding a cool place to store the goods and a good eye to know what may have regardless of your carefull preparations may have spoiled. 

I see no reason why you should not give it a try on a very small scale, just to get the hang of it. There is much feeling of satisfaction in canning give it a try.

I had a small garden when the kids were small, biggest was 10x10 and found the work was horrid, and much went to the birds, rabbits and whatever.    Easiest for me was to head for the pick your own farms that are everywhere, bring the food home, blanch and freeze in vacuum bags.

If I had the room I would try growing Herbs in water or perhaps a vegetable that did not depend on Bees to fertilise them.

Advice is to order on line the seed and plant catalogues and buy high quality seeds. I was given a growing tomato plant grown from seed from a catalogue that not only was little problem but produced more fruit then the store bought growing plants.

Have you tried the upside down growing plant holders ?  I have one but never tried it, have you or the others ever tried one and if you have, what are the results.??

[IassaFTots]

I have a good bit of herbs, that I have managed to keep alive for several years, I couldn't honestly tell you how.  The hydroponic systems are great, but what they lack as far as back breaking work, they make up for in $$ spent, although the yield is much greater.  Here, it is necessary to keep the water cool, which requires coolers, since the temps get so hot, and there is virtually nothing to protect the root base.  I am going to try a small hydroponic set up, in my sunroom this year, but the rest will be outside. 

I have known people that have done quite well with the topsy turvy, but again, the issue with this area is the temperature in the summer.  Since there is less dirt and insulation, the roots get too hot at some point, and they just don't work. 

[bijou]

If you have a good pepper harvest you could try drying them. Where I am we don't get the sun hot enough and long enough through the day to air dry, so I have a dehydrator. You can also dry them using an oven on the lowest setting with the door left ajar. I preserve chillis this way and then can have my own chilli flakes to add to meals. With peppers they do rehydrate and so those I add to meals as I am cooking having pre sliced before drying.

[IassaFTots]

If you have a good pepper harvest you could try drying them. Where I am we don't get the sun hot enough and long enough through the day to air dry, so I have a dehydrator. You can also dry them using an oven on the lowest setting with the door left ajar. I preserve chillis this way and then can have my own chilli flakes to add to meals. With peppers they do rehydrate and so those I add to meals as I am cooking having pre sliced before drying.

If we could find a happy medium between your climate and mine, we would be just about right!   

I didn't think about drying them. BF has a dehydrator.  That might be a good way to use up some cherry tomatoes too.  I got tired of eating them last year. 

[Thor]

If we could find a happy medium between your climate and mine, we would be just about right!   

I didn't think about drying them. BF has a dehydrator.  That might be a good way to use up some cherry tomatoes too.  I got tired of eating them last year. 

Unless you move to Northern OK to Southern Iowa, you ain't gonna get much better than N Texas. Even then, you're going to deal with more snow & ice than here.

[IassaFTots]

Unless you move to Northern OK to Southern Iowa, you ain't gonna get much better than N Texas. Even then, you're going to deal with more snow & ice than here.

Not the winter that is bad here, I was speaking more about the hot dry summers.  It's a killer for a garden.

[bijou]

If we could find a happy medium between your climate and mine, we would be just about right!   

I didn't think about drying them. BF has a dehydrator.  That might be a good way to use up some cherry tomatoes too.  I got tired of eating them last year. 

That works really well. Much cheaper than buying sun dried tomatoes.

[Thor]

Not the winter that is bad here, I was speaking more about the hot dry summers.  It's a killer for a garden.

Yeah, the summers can be terrible for gardens, however, we have a longer growing season, too.

[JLO]

I am a novice gardener, currently I am growing lettuce in my sun room, that I will be eating soon.  I have plans for an outdoor garden this spring/summer.  My BF has been successful with hydroponic gardens in the past few years.  Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, and Squash.  This year I am planning for good yield, supplemented by farmers market stands. 

I have done well with blanching and freezing most vegetables.  I am thinking about venturing into canning this year. 

What advice do any of you have?

The best advice I have is what I found when looking online and saw this new idea in a Q&A link. 

For decades, I have peeled and cored and cooked up tomatoes, etc, then canned or froze the sauce.  Now for the past few years, I do a very simple idea learned below.   

I use a VacuumSealer for this, but it's not mandatory.

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"Q Is there an easy way to can tomatoes without the mess?

A There is -- and the technique is: Don't. As in, don't can; instead, freeze. If you have the space, you can pack in a mess of fruit, keep all the lively, fresh complexity of a great tomato because you don't sully it with heat, and barely mess up a counter.

Here is how to do it. Buy only big-flavored, assertive tomatoes with high acid/high sugar for best flavor in freezing or canning. Rinse them, remove their cores, but do not skin or seed (much of a tomato's character and goodness are in the seeds and the gel around them). Pack them into heavy-duty plastic freezer bags, press out air, seal and freeze. To use, just drop the frozen fruit into whatever you are cooking (skins will slip away quickly), or defrost and use tomatoes raw in salsas or whatever. They lose their shape and mush up a little, but every bit of their character will still sing out.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper hosts "The Splendid Table," American Public Media's national radio food show, splendidtable.org. Send questions to table@mpr.org.
   
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I have since learned -- while still frozen,  run each tomato under hot water, and the skins slip right off.  I don't even core them before freezing.  Wish I knew this trick decades ago!  It's not like a fresh tomato, but it's great for soups and stews and sauces.