Stocked Up

 

Above is our main storage area for our farm and garden canned produce. Upstairs in our pantry, we have a smaller shelf (see below) that will hold a few dozen jars for convenient access while cooking but the bulk of our storage is in the basement where it is dark and cooler. The three columns to the right are the original shelving I build after moving into this house and the one on the left is the extension I built when we decided to produce more and to use a lot more pints than quarts. As you can see, we have done pretty well in the preservation department this year. It makes me feel wealthy indeed standing back and looking at those proverbial fruits of our labor. 

At the top left below the empty jars are the bulk of our dried beans that we raised this year. I say bulk, because as I write this, we are heading down to the farm in a couple hours after it warms up to pick the last of the dried beans that hung in there until they were killed by the hard freeze.  For as many as we planted, the yield wasn't the greatest due to the dry summer but it is still a lot of beans that we will enjoy for the next couple years probably. Below that is the Hubbard squash which I preserved many years worth this fall since we will most likely not raise it again for another four or five years. We had a great harvest with them and it will make many a pumpkin pie, bread or other goodie in the coming years.

There is a partial row of chicken broth which I preserved when we got our yearly supply of chickens for our freezer from our local grower. All the backs and necks go into a pot to make broth. Also in the same row and below are a couple rows of our apples preserved as already made filling. I can simply dump it into a crust or a pan, make a top crust and have a crisp or pie ready in less than an hour.

On the upper right 2/3rds of the shelves is most of our leftover tomato canning from a previous year. I usually can a lot of tomato sauce, chunked tomatoes, soup, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce and paste. Since we had such an abundant harvest the year before, we didn't plant a single tomato plant this year. I did can a couple dozen small jars of pizza sauce and tomato paste this year from volunteer cherry tomato plants though.

Scattered out in the rest of the spots are some preserved charred tomatillos from a previous year, pickled okra from a previous year, some green beans, pears, pickled bitter melon, sweet pickles and dill pickled jalapeno relish. The last one was just an experiment with some leftover brine I had when doing the pickled okra. It turned out really good so I may do more of that in the future. The pickled bitter melon was also an experiment. My wife and MIL love to use fresh bitter melon in dishes but as the name suggests, it is pretty bitter stuff so I don't eat it very often or in little doses. But when I dill pickled it and tried some a few weeks later, most of the bitterness was gone and the crunchy bitter melon was kind of enjoyable to eat. So I'm letting it mellow some more to see just how good it gets.

I should mention that throughout the year as needed, I will pressure can dried beans so that they are essentially heat and serve while being shelf stable. We do that for making quick meals where we don't want to wait on them to soak overnight and then boil for a couple hours the next day. But I'm going to try and keep them in their dried form for now. In the picture below, you can see some of the chick peas (third row from the top) I have canned so that my wife can make hummus in an instant.