With summer coming to an end, it may be time that your home garden is wrapping up. You may have an excess of good produce that you do not want to go to waste. Here is a list of five easy ways to store and use up the food from your garden.
1) Canning is an excellent way to store items from your garden. You can bottle green beans, make pickles from your cucumbers. You can make spaghetti sauce, tomato juice, and tomato soup with your tomatoes. You can make jams, and pie filling with the fruit, as well as just canning it. The amount you can do with canning is amazing. You can find a lot of suggestions and recipes here.
2) You can freeze items as well. I love to open my freezer and pull out the frozen blueberries and strawberries that I have stored there. Corn on the cob freezes well. You need to shuck it and remove all silks before freezing. When freezing fruits you should wash and hull them. Then allow them to dry. You can freeze them in zipper bags. It is also easy to make freezer jam from your fruit.
3) You can dry fruit and certain vegetables to store for long period of time. When I think of dried food, I usually think of banana chips and dried apples. You can also dry your own herbs, and beef jerky. Many people purchase a food dehydrator but you can also use your oven or the sun. You can find tips and recipes here.
4) Some items such as potatoes, apples, and squash store well in a cool dark place. You may need to cure the items (let stand at room temperature for several days) before storing. If you are storing items this way it is important to make sure that you are not storing bruised or broken items, as this will lead to the food spoiling.
5) If you have ran out of room, time or you are simply tired of storing your food give it to someone who doesn’t have a garden. They will be grateful for the homegrown produce, and you are keeping the items from going to waste.