fruit and vegetable storage

Root Cellars 101 – Root Cellar Design, Use and Mistakes to Avoid

February 8, 2020 By Laurie Neverman 80 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

In this article we’ll talk about 5 basic things you must include in a root cellar design, plus 10 tips for fruit and vegetable storage. There’s also a printable storage guide for over 30 fruits and veggies, and links to additional information at the bottom of the post.

A root cellar is a great low-cost way to store food – not just root vegetables, but other fresh produce, too. They require little to no energy to use and very little maintenance.

You can build in a root cellar when your home is under construction, but it’s also possible to add a root cellar to your basement, or build one outside your home.

root cellar with squash and root vegetables on shelves, canning jars on right

…

No Can Dill Pickles – Just Stick Them in a Jar!

August 30, 2016 By Laurie Neverman 94 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

My early attempts at dill pickles were not very successful. I followed the FDA guidelines from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, and ended up with tasty pickles with absolutely no crunch. I love my Blue Book, but these were not the pickles I was looking for. As I understand it, many commercial manufacturers add alum (basically aluminum) to give their pickles crunch. Needless to say, I wasn’t going that direction. These no can dill pickles bring the crunch without the aluminum.

No canning required dill pickles in gallon jar.

…

Preserving Apples – How to Make Applesauce, Apple Leather and Dried Apple Slices

September 12, 2015 By Laurie Neverman 26 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Preserving apples - How to make homemade applesauce, fruit leather, and dried apple rings with cinnamon-sugar. The flavor of homemade is so much better!

“Hey, could you use some apples?”

“Sure, I’d love some.”

So started around two weeks (off and on) of preserving apples. There were (I would guess) around two to three bushels to start with, which we made into sauce, fruit leather, popsicles, and cinnamon/sugar dried apple slices.

…

How to Can Green Beans – Step by Step Instructions for Canning Green Beans

July 20, 2015 By Laurie Neverman 42 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Home canned green beans are one of the boys’ favorite veggies, so I try to process about thirty quarts each season. Our last round of “green” beans actually started out mostly as Purple Podded Pole Beans (which turned green when canned or cooked), but our main crop most years is Emerite pole beans. I prefer pole beans because there is less bending and they produce over a longer season. Here’s our system for cleaning and processing home canned green beans.

How to can green beans in a pressure canner. Picking, cleaning, processing, headspace, processing times, and altitude adjustments for safe canning.

…

How to Make Sauerkraut

November 1, 2010 By Laurie Neverman 36 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Sauerkraut has been around for at least a couple of thousand years. It was eaten by workers on the Great Wall of China, packed by Captain Cook to prevent scurvy, and valued by Northeastern Europeans as a staple food through the long winters. While the name may mean “rotten cabbage”, with this sauerkraut recipe, it should be quite the opposite, staying fresh for an extended period of time. It’s easy to make sauerkraut at home with just a few simple tools.

How to Make Sauerkraut - Naturally fermented and filled with probiotics, sauerkraut is a time honored way to add color and flavor to your meals.

…

fruit and vegetable storage

Footer

How long has it been since you had fresh baked bread?