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How To Preserve Your Fruit Garden Harvest

How To Preserve Your Fruit Garden Harvest

Date: 8/9/11 | Season: Summer

How To Preserve Your Fruit Garden Harvest

You prepared the soil, you planted, you watered, and you grew your own herbs, fruits and vegetables. Now that your garden is plentiful with wonderful treats, how can you possibly eat everything before the summer is over? Summer comes to an end all too quickly, especially for home gardeners. Preserve your summer harvest for off-season enjoyment or gift-giving with these simple ideas.

Easy Ways to Preserve Fruit and Vegetables

Canning
Canning is an easy way to preserve your fruits and vegetables. People have used the canning method for ages to save your harvest and be able to enjoy your fruits and vegetables long after summer has gone.

  1. First you will need to get a few mason jars. Pick them up from your local container store or use ones you have on hand at home.
  2. Pack chopped or whole fruit or vegetables into sterilized jars and cover with syrup, water or brine. Or you can puree the fruit and vegetables beforehand. Do not fill jars all the way to the top, leave about one half inch of space at the top.
  3. To seal the jars, close lids loosely and heat them in a water bath or pressure cooker. This kills any microorganisms and pushes the air out. Seal the jars, and when the contents cool, this vacuum seals the jar.

Canned fruits and vegetables should keep for about a year.


Acidity and Canning
Some foods are naturally more acidic than others. Foods that have less acidity, like green beans, corn, mushrooms and potatoes, require a higher processing temperature in order to kill harmful bacteria and molds that spoil them. 240°F should be sufficient.

Altitude and Canning
Consider the altitude where you will be doing your canning. The higher your location, the longer the food products should be processed. The rule of thumb is for every 3,000 feet in altitude, add five minutes to the boiling water bath processing time. Living in Colorado, we are used to having to alter our cooking and baking recipes for living so high up.


Fruit Preserves
Homemade fruit preserves are one of the best treats in the fall and winter, a great reminder of summer and all of your hard work in the garden. Jams, jellies, marmalades and fruit butter are creative ways to make your harvest last longer than just the few months of the growing season. These can be used as delicious spreads on toast, English muffins, crackers or used for toppings and fillings in baked goods.

Tips

  • Use fruit that is not overripe.
  • Make sure the jars are hot when filled with the hot preserves.
  • Use the canning method and store your fruit preserves in your pantry for future use.

 


Fruit Syrups
Fruit syrups are a tasty addition to almost any breakfast or dessert. Pour over French toast, pancakes, spruce up your English muffin or have it over ice cream for dessert. Fruit syrups can be a bit expensive to purchase at the store. Making them at home is a great choice because you know exactly what is in it--no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. Just good old-fashioned fruit, like your Grandma used to make.

  1. Boil fruit with sugar and water. Crush some of the fruit before cooking, this releases more of the fruit flavor.
  2. Strain liquid into clean, sterilized bottles.
  3. Store the fruit syrup in the refrigerator. 

 
Freezing
Freezing fruit and vegetables is one of the simplest ways to preserve your food for use during the fall and winter months. It is very efficient, takes very little effort and your frozen goods will keep for about a year.

Select a container that is close to air tight, which will be resistant to moisture and vapor. Glass jars, some metal and plastic containers will do the trick.

Wash your fruit and chop or peel it if you like. Make sure all water is rinsed off the fruit completely before putting it in freezer containers.


One of the best things about growing your own home grown produce and herbs is knowing where your food originates--zero miles from garden to table and no chemicals. This is another great benefit of preserving your goods: When you use them later, this is still the case.

Year over year, you will get better at this and will learn what freezes well, what you want to grow and how your family can use it all year. You can preserve your home grown produce, food purchased from a farmers market or co-op.

Canning and preserving your harvest can be a fun enjoyable experience for the whole family. Preserve the flavor of summer!