Storing the Garden for Winter

I imagine you are asking yourself why in the world I'm talking about winter?  After all, it is the end of June and snow is far away.  Well, you would be right, winter is far away - unfortunately!  Let it be known that I am a self-proclaimed "fat girl" and I do not like the heat!  But, I'm off track!

The main reason we have a garden is so that we have a lot of home canned and preserved (and non-gmo!) foods to rely upon during the fall, winter and early spring months.  I don't like not knowing what is in my food, and until the US government stops taking money from Monsanto's wallet and jumps on board with other (dare I say, smarter) countries by either banning gmos or at the very least, labeling them, I am limiting the amount of food we will purchase.

So far, from our garden we have harvested onions, radishes, leaf lettuce, rhubarb, strawberries (what the chipmunk didn't eat) some herbs and the first of the yellow squash.  The radishes were *not* preserved as the husband and children ate them all in the first week.  They have since been replanted and are showing new growth.

Onions - as my husband and sons seem to have an aversion to allowing them to grow to full size, I chop these little babies up in my mini food processor and freeze them in a storage container.  It is nice to be able to grab a handful and throw them into a skillet when I'm cooking dinner.  I buy full size onions from the farmer's market in the fall, chop them up and mix them with bell peppers and freeze them.  Again, it is nice to have these already prepared so that I can add them to whatever I am cooking.

Leaf Lettuce- I *don't believe* there is any possible way to preserve the lettuce.  If I'm wrong, please let me know.

Rhubarb - As in a previous post, I made jam from my second harvest of rhubarb and strawberries and pies from the first.  From my third (and probably final) harvest I will chop these into 1 inch pieces and freeze them for use in winter/holiday baking.

Strawberries - I know many people freeze strawberries.  personally, I do NOT recommend this as they will be smooshy and not at all tasty.  I usually make jam or syrup from mine.  I have seen many of the stores in Amish country offering dehydrated strawberries and may try that.  I will also be making fruit roll-ups in the coming weeks and will post a tutorial in a future blog post.

Squash - well, so far the squash has been a quasi-disaster, all of my own doings.  I would like to advice my readers NOT to plant your squash where your rabbits once were :)  Too much nitrogen in the soil leads to big, beautiful leaves and plants that get blossom rot.  thankfully, squash plants act as a kind of filter, or sponge, and you will eventually get some squash, it just might take a while.  Once we start getting tired of fresh zucchini, I grate it and make at least a dozen full sized loaves of zucchini bread, which we freeze.  I then slice the remaining zucchini and yellow squash into 1/4 inch slices, bread them, let the breading dry and freeze them in quart size bags so that I can quickly fry them whenever we want.

Herbs: Rosemary, basil and sage I hang up to dry and keep in air tight containers.  You might choose to grind them - I don't.

And so, the beginning of my winter preparations.  The to-do list is much longer, and I will add tutorials and photos along the way.