Raise your hand if you’re the type of gardener – or if you know the type of gardener – who does his or her part to grow enough vegetables to feed the country’s armed forces? If you have ever dropped off “a dozen tomatoes or so” in a plastic garbage bag to at least three people, this article is for you. These gardeners are the growing, nurturing type. They grow because they must, and it’s obvious when the time comes to collect the harvest. Many people don’t know the options available to them to help make their harvest last.

Proper storage actually begins with the harvest and knowing what the right time is to bring in a crop. Some vegetables are not as crucial, while others have to be picked at just the right time. This is a matter of knowing your crop. If you don’t know, check the Internet, books, or a gardening neighbor. Don’t be afraid to ask and make sure that you are right.

Once you bring in boxes, bags, and buckets of vegetables, setting them on any flat surface available in the house, you need to check your storage options. One option is the root cellar – or any other cool, dry, and dark environment. Any lightless room between 35 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit should work if the humidity is low (but not dry). Simply place your vegetables on the shelves – not on the floor – and store for the winter.

With any preservation method – including the root cellar – it is important to get rid of any rot, disease, decay, or even bruising right away. These things spread to the other vegetables and can easily ruin a great deal of work

Once you have ensured you only have the freshest of vegetables, it’s time to look at some more advanced preservation methods.

The first way to preserve your food is to can it. Canning is a process in which you place your food in a thick jar, heating it high enough to kill the bacteria that causes food to spoil. You also force the extra air out of the jar – this forms a vacuum seal when the jar cools, keeping the bacteria from growing again. Food can keep for years with this method, letting you enjoy the your labors long after the harvest.

Another way to preserve food is to dehydrate it. Dehydrating, as the name suggests, is a process to remove the water from food. This is most often done with beef jerky, but it can be done with fruits and vegetables as well. You can make cucumber chips for a tasty snack during the winter. The easiest way to dehydrate food is with … of all things … a dehydrator. Using low temperatures and air circulation a dehydrator can quickly and safely remove the moisture from food leaving it fresh for months to come.

No matter what method you choose to preserve your harvest, it is rewarding to enjoy your home-grown food months and years after your harvested it. You get to enjoy the fresh taste, the low coast, and the subtle satisfaction that you did not have to go to the grocery store in that blizzard.

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Gardeners tend to be growers. It sounds like a silly statement, but if you know any die-hard gardeners, you know what that means. They are the ones who drop off three-dozen cucumbers because they had “some” extra. Gardeners do not know how to stop from growing things, they just do as much as they can and see what comes out on the other side. So after they bring in a harvest that could feed the pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, the Donner Party, and the Brady Bunch, what are you supposed to do with all that food? Storing vegetables for the winter is surprisingly easier than most people believe.

People harvested vegetables long before the invention of the refrigerator and other modern preservation methods. If you travel to any pre-technology era you will find that many cultures had root cellars – these were the places to store vegetables after the harvest so that families would be able to eat for the next year. Many modern people believe that vegetables need to have special treatment to keep them good. This root cellar was the perfect environment to store many vegetables until the next harvest was available.

Storing vegetables actually start with the harvest. Part of storing your harvest is knowing the right time to pluck the vegetables from the vine. Some vegetables don’t have a preference, while others are particularly persnickety about when they are harvested. If you don’t know when a good harvest time is, then ask. There’s a wealth of information online that you could use to determine the right harvest time. There are web sites and user groups – groups of people who share a common interest and usually help each other with questions and problems others may have. There are also countless books available that help gardeners. And if all else fails, you can ask for help. Many greenhouses have people who have grown things all their lives working there and could answer many of your problems in their sleep. Don’t be afraid to ask – everyone has to learn sometime, and few people understand that like the nurturing personality of a grower.

Once you have collected your harvest (at the proper time) and your kitchen, living room, and bathroom are filled with bags and boxes of vegetables, it’s time to store them. In some cases, vegetables can just be left in boxes for the winter. Basements and attics are great places for this if they are dark and cool (between 35-45 degrees Fahrenheit). Don’t store them directly on the floor – too much moisture gathers and rots them. Speaking of rot – if there is any sign of bruising or decay on a vegetable, throw it away. The rotting spreads quickly and can easily wipe out an entire harvest.

There are other methods of preservation such as canning and dehydrating. However, why deal with the complicated with the simple works well? With no electricity or other modern conveniences, gardeners can enjoy their harvest year-round.

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Face it, you can only eat so many pickles before you turn into one. And if you are a true gardener you made enough cucumbers to feed a small army and give them ammunition. It’s only natural though. Gardeners tend to be nurturing people – people who feel fulfilled when the give of themselves to one another. So they give away their harvest, but there always seems to be more. And when that last harvest of the season comes, and you’ve brought boxes, bags, and buckets of vegetables into your home, setting them on any flat surface available in the house, it’s time to think about storing them.

There are a number of methods available – you can simply store them in a cool, dry, and dark place and they should keep. You can also use a canner – heating them to a high temperature and vacuum sealing them, keeping them fresh for years. The last method is dehydrating your food. This is most well known for being the process by which we get beef jerky, but it can also be used for your fruits and vegetables too.

With any preservation method, it is important to get rid of any rot, disease, decay, or even bruising as soon as possible. This spreads to the other vegetables like a giggle in a kindergarten class. The giggle doesn’t ruin an entire growing season’s worth of work, though.

Once you have ensured you only have the freshest of vegetables, it’s time to look at dehydrating. Obviously dehydration involves removing the water from food and other products. This kills the bacteria and keeps the food from spoiling. It also makes a steak turn into a nickel. Well, not quite, but dehydration removes a great deal of the weight an bulk of a food.

People used to dehydrate foods by leaving them in the sun. Now there are many different dehydrators available, but they all work on the same principle. A gardener puts his harvest into the dehydrator. It warms the food slightly and allows the moisture to evaporate. Some dehydrators cycle air through them to speed this process up even more. This is not a fast process. When a gardener dehydrates food in the sun, it can take three to five days. Dehydrators can do the same job in about 6 hours.

There are countless dehydrator recipes, but for the sake of the gardener, we will focus on the drying vegetables. Vegetables much go through a process known as “blanching” prior to being dried. This heats the vegetables with steam or water hot enough to destroy the enzymes in it. Not blanching vegetables will result in bitter tasting veggies down the road.

After that, you place the vegetables in the dehydrator for the specified amount of time, remove them and let them cool, then place them in an airtight container. They will keep this way for 6-12 months if the storage conditions are right – cool, dry, and dark. Vegetables can be eaten as a healthy alternative to the potato chip, or they can be reconstituted by adding water. This is great for making soup or stew later on.

Thanks to the dehydration process, if it is done correctly, you can enjoy your homegrown vegetables for months down the road.

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