Lately, I’ve been getting some requests for a video on preserving your harvest. I think that’s a great idea so it’s the topic for this week’s video. But I went into a bit more detail by also including when to harvest certain types of veggies.
Bill and I have been growing vegetables for a very long time. We’ve learned which signs to look for on each crop so we pick them at the right time. I hope you’ll find that really helpful.
Near the end of the video, you’ll learn about 5 resources on growing, harvesting and preserving your harvest. You definitely don’t want to miss that because they are so useful!
Here are the vegetable crops I talk about in the video:
- Beans (bush and polel)
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Carrots
- Celery
- Corn
- Cucumbers
- Garlic
- Melons
- Onions and shallots
- Peas
- Peppers, sweet and hot
- Pumpkins
- Spinach and Swiss chard
- Squash, summer and winter
- Tomatoes
For preserving your harvest, I mention these techniques:
- Blanching and freezing
- Making relishes, sauce, salsa and ketchup
- Storing root crops so they’ll stay fresh
- Storing tomatoes (temporarily), winter squash and pumpkins
I didn’t think to show you the current state of our freezer and basement pantry during the video. But both areas are overflowing with harvests so we know we’ll eat well in the coming months! That said, I’ve also been donating a lot of produce (primarily beans, cucumbers and zucchini) to our local food bank. This is really important to me because I know many folks in our community could use some help. And tasty, homegrown produce is a great way to do that! So if you have more than you can eat, remember that this is a very easy thing to do.
Here is my video on Using & Preserving Your Harvest:
I hope you enjoyed the video. Did you know I now have 640 videos on my YouTube channel? All of them are designed to help you be successful at gardening! My videos come out every Thursday. There’s also a Vegetable Gardening Videos playlist as well as a Cooking playlist on my channel. That way, you can pick and choose what you’d like to watch.