Preserving and Storing ‘Get Growing’ Abundance.

“Even if only we have a tiny plot of land, we should try to grow a few vegetables using organic fertilizers. Spending some time with our plants, we should talk to them, kiss them and sing to them. This relationship will give us new vitality.” — Amma

So, let’s assume all your effort and time combined with mother nature’s gift of sun, rain and fab soil have resulted in your garden producing lots of yummy fresh food.

We (Kaivalya and Richard) grow our own food so we can have fresh home grown produce on our tables and in our tummies.

However, you may find that your growing space is producing so much abundance that you are a wee bit overwhelmed. Maybe you have exhausted all the ways you can eat courgettes, beans and chard. Then the concern is they sit in the fridge and get tired, or worse than that, they rot. Amma is not a fan of wasting food, so what to do?

Here’s how to preserve or store surplus fruit and vegetables to eat during the winter when there is no fresh veg or fruit coming off your growing space. We will briefly go through all the ways you can extend the eating of your crops. I could write many pages on this, but there are books out there that do just that.

I have divided the different methods based on what we do (so it is not comprehensive).

• Some vegetables and fruit can be stored unprocessed during winter in a cool, dark, dry space in the house or outside.
• You can freeze your extra produce — although the freezer can quickly fill up.
• Reduce the size of your produce through drying, dehydrating or boiling.
• Or you can make preserves, jams or chutneys.

Examples of vegetables that are easy to store unprocessed over winter are: potatoes, squash, marrow, cabbage; root vegetables such as onions and garlic, and fruit such as apples and pears.

General info

• Storage location — put them in hessian sacks, paper bags, cloth bags and in a cool, dark in a dry cellar, cupboard, outside shed or outside box. You must make this safe from rats and squirrels, and protect from frost if outside.
• Before storage, check for damage as this can cause rot. Eat or give away anything that is not likely to survive.
• Check stored produce from time to time to make sure nothing is rotting or getting eaten by rodents.

How and what to prepare for unprocessed storage

• Potatoes — we lay these out on newspaper in our sitting room and cover with more newspaper — so not much room left for us. When they are dry, we check them for any damage, for instance, slug or wire worm holes. We then cut these away and remove the bits of damaged potatoes. We put the damaged potatoes back on the newspaper to repair themselves: they have a wonderful ability of growing a skin over the cut potato surface. We then separate the damaged ones from the pristine ones and eat the damaged ones first. You can also try storing them outside in what is called a ‘tamper’. Basic description is a pile of potatoes covered by soil and straw. We have not done this before, so please check how to do this in a book or online. Our potatoes stay fresh right up until spring (though usually they are all gone by then 😊). If they get shoots on them, just take them off and eat. If it’s too warm or light, they will sprout early.
• Squash/marrow — we leave them out for a bit for skins to harden and then store. They last for ages.
• Carrots/beetroot — again, check them for damage. If they are stored in bags they will slowly dry out and become wizened. This does not mean they are bad or inedible. You can still eat them.
• Another way to store them is get a box of sand and cover them. This stops the dehydrating process. We left some of our beets and carrots in beds last year, nearly all through winter. This worked well until we had a month of frost, and then they rotted.
• Apples/pears — wrap in newspaper. Put on trays (you can use those plastic stackable ones which are often thrown away by veg shops). Try to not let them touch each other on the tray. This will stop any rot spreading. Check them regularly.
• Onions/garlic — need to be thoroughly dry before storing. Leave in the sun or put in empty hanging baskets for at least 4–6 weeks. We sometimes plait the garlic stems when dry, but this year we are going to plait them before dry. This results in a lovely string of garlic you can hang somewhere, and just cut off the garlic bulbs as and when needed.

Freezing

Most produce can be frozen

General Info

• Storage location — a freezer 😊.
• You can just put straight into the freezer — produce such as berries, tomatoes, spinach or other leaves.
• Blanch — put into boiling water for a few minutes. Then let dry for a bit on a tea towel and freeze. You need to let them dry out first, so they don’t freeze in clumps.

Reducing size of stored abundance

Most veg and fruit can be dehydrated, but fruit and veg with acid content, like tomatoes, need to be boiled.

General Info

Reasons to preserve food using either of these two methods:

• To save space — requires a lot less space to store.
• To save energy — once dehydrated or boiled they are stored in jars and do not rely on electricity to stay fresh.
• They are transportable — we can take them away with us for holidays etc., and not worry about them get damaged during transit or spoiling. Reuse jars with metal lids or use Kilner jars or zip lock bags.

How to preserve food by boiling

Foods with acid content such as blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries and tomatoes are best stored in this way.

• First, wash your jars.
• Once you have picked a lot of whatever abundance you are preserving, let’s say blackberries (we freeze them until we have enough to fill a big pan), put them in pan at very low heat. This will allow the berries to release their juice and prevent burning. We do not add any water.
• Once it is quite liquidly, turn up the heat.
• While you are waiting for it to boil, sterilise your jars by pouring boiling hot water onto the empty jars and onto the lids (we put the lids into a jug and fill it with the boiling water). A ladle is needed as well. Steel is best. Put this in the jug as well.
• Once it has boiled for 5 mins, ladle into the hot, empty jug and pour into the jars. Don’t put it all in the jug all at once otherwise it will cool down. Try and keep everything as hot as possible during this process. Fill the jars up to just below the top of the rims and immediately put the lids on and screw on tight. It is hot work. Wear gloves or use a tea towel to protect your hands.
• As they cool down, a vacuum is created between lid and the top of fruit. If your lids have that dimple in the middle this should go down. If you are lucky, you will be surprised with a “pop” as it cools. If a lid does not go down, when cool, lightly press and it should go down. If there is no dimple, then just look at it from the side and it should be concave. If the dimple does not go down when cool, it means that the lid does not fit snugly enough to make a vacuum. You will have to do it again or just make sure you eat that one sooner than the rest.

THAT IS IT!

We use the stewed fruit on muesli or porridge, or we make crumbles with it. Once sealed they last for ages, we have some from 3 years ago (if you look closely at the picture, you will see the gooseberries are from 3 years ago).

Dehydrating

We use this method a lot. We invested in a vegetable dehydrator. It consists of stackable grated trays with a low energy fan which blows air from the bottom or side, depending on the make. This warm air circulates within the sealed container and slowly removes moisture without cooking, which keeps in all the goodness. However, you can also use the fan oven on very low heat with the door open, although this definitely isn’t an energy efficient method.

We dry beans, courgette, beets, spinach, kale, apple, pear, garlic, herbs, tomatoes and more.

Size reduction depends on water content of the produce. Courgette reduces to about 90% whereas beetroot perhaps 50–60%. It can take over 10 hours to dry some produce. Some take even more time than this.

The weather does impact on the speed of drying as does the ambient temperature and humidity.

Vegetables which need cutting will dry faster if there is a bigger cut surface. We use a mandolin for 5mm slices of courgettes, apples, pears, beetroot. Any thinner and you are aiming for veggie crisps.

Some veg we dry raw — courgette, kale, spinach and beans. However, we also blanch beans first and for beetroot we cook and then dry them.

Once you have sliced up the produce, lightly oil the trays as the veg tend to stick, especially those with a lot of exposed flesh like courgette and beetroot.

Our dehydrator has the fan at the bottom so we move our trays around every couple of hours, so everyone gets the chance to be nearer the heat 😊. Some of the more expensive makes have fans coming from the back so all the trays get same heat.

You know when the produce is ready when the pieces either snap or is pretty hard. I use my fingernail and press into them if unsure. If it changes colour, there is still moisture in it.

Once they are dry and cooled down, we then decant them into Kilner jars, large pickle jars or in plastic bags which are airtight, and store in cool dry place. If they soften you can re dehydrate them.

Some of dehydrated produce rehydrate really well, while others may be rubbery or disappear all together (courgettes do as they are so thinly cut), so we treat each one differently. Obviously the kale and spinach do not keep their shape but become fragments which are fab in curries etc.

Fun and tasty dehydration food ideas:

• You can cut veg very thin sprinkle with herbs/spice and get crisps. Remember to oil trays.
• Slice tomatoes (any thickness), sprinkle with herbs and dry. When you want to use then add some to hot water till a bit softer and then add to oil, sun dried tomatoes or on top of pizza.
• Fruit leathers from the juice of berries. Put into trays and you will get strips of dried fruit juice
• Energy bars mix of fruit juice and crushed seeds or oats.
• Vegetable powders — dry the veg and then crush into a powder which can be used in soups, stews or smoothies.

Dehydrated produce last for ages if they stay dry. We have carrots and garlic from 3 years ago that are still hard and are still eating dried apple, pear and courgette from last year.

Happy storing!

Kaivalya and Richard