Most gardeners will agree that the most satisfying time of year is when you get to harvest the foods you have worked so hard to grow. This is the absolute BEST part of having your own garden. It is so satisfying to put a meal on the table and know that you actually grew the ingredients yourself. I’ve noticed that the fresh vegetables from my garden tend to taste better than grocery store fare as well plus you can save a lot of money by using your own home grown produce.

I’d like to share with you another wonderful use of your garden veggies that is often overlooked. What do you do if you have a monster tomato plant and you have 30-40 tomatoes all ripen at the same time? What about when you eat cucumbers for 10 days straight and STILL have 5 more left in your refrigerator? Or flocks of bush beans that you didn’t realize should have been staggered several weeks apart? I have the answer … BUILD UP YOUR FOOD STORAGE!

Garden vegetables are some of the easiest things to bottle, freeze, dry, etc. Last year I bottled pickles, fresh salsa, and whole tomatoes. I froze bags of beans and peas. My mom recently donated her food dehydrator to me so I’m anxious to learn that art of preservation now as well. If you are working on building any type of long term food storage program, these home-grown items will be invaluable to you. The benefits of preserving homegrown vegetables are: they are organic, they retain nutrients better, they only use natural preservatives, and they are FREE! How can you beat that?

So if you end up with an abundance of items you can’t finish up this season, look into some of these ways of preserving your harvest. And maybe, just maybe, next year you will find yourself planting extras of certain items so that you can have enough to stock up your food storage shelves even more!

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Filed under: Landscaping tips

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