Introduction

Before the canning and butchering industries became widespread, families had to preserve their own food by canning, drying, and salting produce and meat. Each year, a family’s major efforts were focused on storing up enough food for the wintertime. Today, most people can run out to the grocery store to pick up a pound of bacon or a jar of applesauce, but some still enjoy the practice of preserving their own foods. Many people are more careful about the additives and quality of the food they eat, or prefer to select organic foods. Other people like to have several options for storing the produce from their own gardens — when the freezer is full, it is nice to be able to put away jarred fruits and vegetables in the pantry.

Storing food is a great option to increase the amount of available food for less money. By buying produce in season, you can get the best price. Then you can enjoy those foods in an off-season when the grocery store sells the same produce, picked and shipped from far away, for double or triple the cost of the in-season price. Canning can be a safe and economical way to preserve quality food at home. Disregarding the value of your labor, canning homegrown food may save you half the cost of buying commercially canned food. Preserving your own foods is economical. Once you make your investment in canning equipment, the only supplies you will need to buy in future years are the two-piece screw-top lids, a few freezer bags, plastic containers, or other equipment that can also be washed and re-used. Drying foods requires even less equipment to produce a large supply of healthful meals.

People are concerned about buying locally grown, in-season foods. Besides offering fresher produce, this reduces the amount of pollution and energy needed to get food from the farm to the consumer. Preserved foods are often more healthful than weeks-old “fresh” produce at the market. Think about buying tomatoes off-season — these fruits are harvested before they are ripe so that they will remain edible during handling and shipping. The unripe fruit is then often treated with a ripening agent and perhaps a preservative. The truck, train, plane, and/or ship that brings you the food spreads pollution across the country as the produce makes its way to your market. Then the fruit sits in a refrigerated bin until you buy it at an inflated price, and when you bring it home, you are eating a tasteless, over-processed tomato. Appetizing, right?

By contrast, you could harvest a tomato in season from your own — or a friend’s — garden. Or, you could select produce at a farmers market or fruit stand from a farmer in your region who might have picked the tomatoes that morning. If you preserve the tomatoes while they are fresh, you will have a delicious source of soups, sauces, and other recipes all winter long. Granted, this does not mean that you will be able to enjoy a fresh tomato in January, but what you find in the grocery store is not so fresh, either.

Even when fruits and vegetables are refrigerated, their nutrition content has been declining since they were harvested. Within a week, up to 50 percent of the nutrients can be lost. Though the heat from canning destroys up to half of the Vitamin A, Vitamin C, riboflavin, and thiamin in foods, after the canning process is complete, the nutritional loss slows to 5 to 20 percent per year.

According to the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association, freezing foods can add as much as 600 percent to the lifespan of many common refrigerated foods — and many people take advantage of that. Ball Corporation, one of the largest canning and packaging firms in the world, produces more than 50 billion containers per year. Clearly, even though our society is busier than ever, people still find the time and effort of preserving food to be worth it.

All of the methods of food preservation discussed in this book are techniques that can be learned easily. However, you will need to follow the directions exactly, and with some methods, you will need to buy certain supplies to preserve foods properly. If foods are not preserved properly, you run the risk of spoiling the foods or even making people ill from the foods.

This book will show you how to store food for future use and how to save money while doing it. You will learn to minimize the risk of damaging food or spreading food-borne illnesses. You will learn how to grow for harvest and how to handle that harvest with this book’s crop-by-crop guide. You will learn how freezing works, how to organize your freezer, the various methods of freezing, and why failure occurs. In addition to freezing, you will learn about the canning and preserving processes, and the problems you may encounter. All of the equipment you might need is laid out in easy-to-read charts, and you will be shown the various final products you can expect.

Experts in food preservation and storage have been interviewed and their commentary has been included here to help you in storing foods. No matter your situation, this guide will help you learn how to store multiple forms of vegetables and fruits and to understand how they perform, why failure occurs, and what you need to be successful.

A History of Preserving Food

Before refrigerators and freezers were invented, people had few methods of storing food past the harvesting or butchering season. The oldest form of preserving food is salting and smoking meats and fish and drying fruits and vegetables. In fact, these were the only methods that early humans had to store food for later consumption, unless they lived in a frozen land where caches of food could be stored under ice. The first records of salting fish are about 5,500 years old.

These early preservers used either sea salt or mined rock salt for preserving meat. The sea salts contained minerals and substances, including nitrates, which people noticed gave a pinkish color to meat. It was not until the 20th Century that scientists discovered these nitrates could be harmful to humans, and the government regulated their use in commercially prepared foods.

Without refrigeration and before the invention of canning, a catch of cod or herring could not be transported far before it spoiled. Most of the haul from a fishery was smoked before being sent to markets throughout the country. This smoking removed the moisture that could cause bacteria and rot. Some fish were so heavily salted and smoked that homemakers had to soak the dried fish in water to remove excess salt and rehydrate the food for eating.

The canning method of storing food began in 1795, when the French government offered a reward of 12,000 francs to anyone who could invent a method of preserving food for the entire military. Chef Nicolas Appert was awarded this prize in 1810. He invented the “Appert method” of sealing food in bottles and jars covered with cork, wire, and sealing wax. These containers were then boiled for several hours to complete the preservation process. The popular Mason jars were invented in 1858 by New Yorker John L. Mason, who began his career as a tinsmith at a young age. The Ball Company soon followed by mass-producing canning jars and lids. By 1892, it operated three factories in New York and Indiana, run by more than 1,000 workers.

Illustration courtesy of the USDA

During World War II, Americans were encouraged to grow “Victory Gardens.” Rather than using canned goods from the store, the government encouraged citizens to use their own canning jars and produce so that metal from the commercial canning supplies could be rerouted for the war effort. However, after the war, the popularity of canning waned. In the 1950s and 60s, Americans were more interested in TV dinners and fast food restaurants, and it was not until the recession of the 1970s that people once again became interested in fresh food from the land. Canning once again became popular.

The science of freezing foods was created much later than these other methods. In the early 20th century, some households had an icebox that consisted of a box with a container for ice at the top. An iceman would regularly bring new cakes of ice to replace the melted ice in this box. This arrangement kept foods cold for several days but was not considered a method of preserving foods. This changed when Clarence Birdseye, founder of the Birdseye frozen foods empire, invented a double-belt freezer in 1928. Two years later, he introduced the first line of frozen foods, including several varieties of vegetables and fruits, 18 different cuts of meat, and seafood.

At first, frozen foods were not completely accepted. Merchants needed to buy expensive freezers to display these foods, and consumers were put off by the different textures and flavors of frozen foods. World War II provided a boost to the frozen food industry because tinned and canned foods were sent to feed the armed forces, and frozen foods were left for civilians. By the 1960s, most households had modern freezers and could easily store frozen foods. Since that time, freezing has become increasingly popular as frozen food companies develop meals for dieters and children, and offer more variety of foods. Refrigerator/freezer combos continue to grow larger, and people sometimes buy an additional chest freezer to store foods.

Safe preservation methods

Foods spoil for a number of reasons, but it mostly has to do with the growth of destructive microorganisms. All preservation techniques are designed to eliminate or neutralize these destructive microorganisms, so that food is safe to eat for long periods of time. One type of spoilage is caused by microorganisms called bacteria. Most bacteria are microscopic and are of no harm to people. Many forms of bacteria are actually beneficial, aiding in the production of such things as cheese, bread, butter, and alcoholic beverages. Only a small percentage of bacteria will cause food to spoil and can generate a form of food poisoning when consumed.

Most fresh foods contain a high percentage of water, which makes them perishable. Undesirable microorganisms, like bacteria, molds, and yeasts, can easily grow in unprocessed foods. Food enzymes can remain active, leading to over-ripening and spoilage. The oxygen in food tissues can dry out the foods and leave them tasteless and less nutritious. Microorganisms grow in bruised fruit, and are also present on food surfaces and inside the skin of fruits that have been damaged. These microorganisms multiply quickly and cause disease.

Another type of microorganism is mold. Usually mold affects the flavor of foods and often makes it inedible; however, some types of mold are actually beneficial, such as the mold that produces blue cheese, or the strain used to develop penicillin. Several strains of mold affect foods, and they appear as a gray, black, or white cottony growth on fruits and vegetables, and as blue or green spots on meats. Mold generally does not appear on foods that are kept frozen at the proper temperature, canned properly, or dried foods stored in the right environment. However, if you keep a root cellar, you will need to be vigilant about watching for mold and preventing it from spreading and wiping out your entire store. A layer of this mold on the surface of a jar of jelly does not necessarily mean the entire jar is spoiled, nor does it mean an entire loaf of bread is ruined because some mold appears on one slice. However, you will want to kill any mold spores on surfaces and utensils by thorough cleaning and by boiling utensils to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yeasts are caused by the fermenting of sugars. Yeasts are helpful in raising bread and fermenting fruit and grains into alcoholic beverages. However, yeasts can also grow in a jar of fruit or vegetables and sour the produce so that it is inedible. In canning, this happens when the jars are sealed improperly and air containing yeast particles enter the jar. The first indication of yeast formation is a bubbly look to the product in the jar and a sour smell when it is opened. Yeasts have difficulty growing in a cold freezer or in dried foods, but they can be a problem in a root cellar.

Bacteria are a particular enemy of foods that contain low amounts of acid, like milk, meats, nuts, and legumes. As bacteria grow, it can create deadly growths of ptomaine and botulism, which may be difficult to detect and fatal to eat — even in tiny amounts. Unlike molds and yeasts, bacteria can survive temperatures greater than 212 degrees, which is the boiling point of water. These bacteria exist either as spores or as vegetative cells. The spores, which are comparable to plant seeds, can survive harmlessly in soil and water for many years. When ideal conditions exist for growth, the spores produce vegetative cells, which multiply rapidly and may produce a deadly toxin within 3 to 4 days of growth in an environment consisting of:

• a moist, low-acid food

• a temperature between 40 degrees and 120 degrees F

• less than 2 percent oxygen.

Illustration courtesy of the USDA

This makes it difficult to sterilize items that have come in contact with bacteria. Proper canning techniques such as adding lemon juice, lime juice, or vinegar prevent the growth of bacteria. Adding these liquids helps to raise the acid content high enough to destroy bacteria. Low-acid foods are canned only in a pressure canner that concentrates heat at a very high level for a long time to kill the microorganisms. In the drying process, proper handling of meat, the removal of moisture, and the addition of salt all work together to lessen the danger of bacterial poisoning. When freezing and thawing foods, it is crucial to handle food properly so that it does not come into contact with harmful bacteria, or that the food is not set in an environment where any bacteria already present have a chance to grow and multiply.

Foods also spoil because of the chemical and physical changes they can undergo. For example, fats such as oils or bacon grease will eventually turn rancid from a long reaction to oxygen; the oils in nuts can turn rancid for the same reason. Herbs and grains can become too dry and lose flavor and nutrition over long storage periods. Frozen foods have a specific storage period and if kept frozen too long or improperly sealed, the food becomes damaged and inedible. Often you will see ice crystals forming on foods that have been in the freezer too long; these ice crystals will damage the texture of the food and pull out enough moisture to spoil the flavor. You have probably seen frozen meats that have “freezer burn.” Freezer burn happens when the moisture has been removed from exposed portions of meat, leaving a tough tasteless gray mass. Although these conditions are not life-threatening, they do not add to your enjoyment of a frozen meal.

There are many ways to prevent food poisoning and spoilage. The most obvious method is to keep all food preparation surfaces and utensils clean and to thoroughly wash your hands before handling food. A cleanser containing bleach is effective in killing microorganisms. However, if you are concerned about the effect of chlorine bleach on the environment, a strong vinegar solution in a spray bottle is an excellent alternative. If you are preparing meats for preservation, you should wash your hands and anything in contact with the meat before handling produce, herbs, or grains. Always wash your produce before preservation or cooking — and be sure to scrub the skins if you will be eating those.

It is best to preserve produce right after you pick and wash it, but if that is not possible, store your produce in the refrigerator to slow the growth of microorganisms. This will also slow the ripening process so your food is not past its prime by the time you are ready to preserve it. Make sure the produce is dry, whether you keep it in the refrigerator or on a counter. Moisture is a great enabler for the growth of yeasts, molds, and bacteria.

Commercially, our food is protected from spoiling in several ways. Have you ever seen a food label that contains the ingredients benzoic acid or sodium benzoate? These are chemical antiseptics added to foods as a preservative — and one benefit of home preservation is to eliminate those chemicals in our foods. Commercial food companies also protect foods like milk products by pasteurizing them. Pasteurized foods are heated past the boiling point to kill microorganisms, just as with home preservation.

At home, you can prevent preserved foods from spoiling through several methods. Hot water sterilization is the main method for canning. All your canning jars, lids, tongs, and other tools must be sterilized before adding the food; then the filled jars must be set in boiling water for a specified period of time, depending on the food. Fruits have a short boiling period — as short as ten minutes — and meats have the longest time period, at four hours or longer.

Drying and smoking foods prevents them from spoiling by removing moisture and making the food inhabitable for germs. Many meats and vegetables are dried with salt, which has an antiseptic action. Fruits are dried until the sugar concentrates to a level of 65 percent; the removal of much of the water slows spoilage. Smoking food helps preserve food through the removal of water, but also through the compound in the smoke.

Most bacteria, yeasts, and molds are difficult to remove from food surfaces. Washing fresh food reduces their numbers only slightly. Peeling root crops, underground stem crops, and tomatoes reduces their numbers greatly. Blanching also helps, but the vital controls are the method of canning and making sure the recommended research-based process times, found in these guides, are used.

The processing times in these guides ensure destruction of the largest expected number of heat-resistant microorganisms in home-canned foods. Properly sterilized canned food will be free of spoilage if lids seal and jars are stored below 95 degrees F. Storing jars at 50 degrees to 70 degrees F enhances retention of quality.

Case Study: For Safety’s Sake

Courtesy of the USDA

Pressure canning is the only recommended method for canning meat, poultry, seafood, and vegetables. The bacterium Clostridium botulinum is destroyed in low-acid foods when they are processed at the correct time and pressure in pressure canners. Using boiling water canners for these foods poses a real risk of botulism poisoning.

If Clostridium botulinum bacteria survive and grow inside a sealed jar of food, they can produce a poisonous toxin. Even a taste of food containing this toxin can be fatal. Boiling food 10 minutes at altitudes below 1,000 ft should destroy this poison when it is present. For altitudes at and above 1,000 ft, add 1 additional minute per 1,000 ft additional elevation. Caution: To prevent the risk of botulism, low-acid and tomato foods not canned according to the recommendations in this publication or according to other USDA-endorsed recommendations should be boiled as above in a saucepan before consuming, even if you detect no signs of spoilage. This is not intended to serve as a recommendation for consuming foods known to be significantly underprocessed according to current standards and recommended methods. It is not a guarantee that all possible defects and hazards with other methods can be overcome by this boiling process. All low-acid foods canned according to the approved recommendations may be eaten without boiling them when you are sure of all the following:

• Food was processed in a pressure canner.

• Gauge of the pressure canner was accurate.

• Up-to-date researched process times and pressures were used for the size of jar, style of pack, and kind of food being canned.

• The process time and pressure recommended for sterilizing the food at your altitude was followed.

• Jar lid is firmly sealed and concave.

• Nothing has leaked from jar.

• No liquid spurts out when jar is opened.

• No unnatural or “off” odors can be detected.

Do Your Canned Foods Pass This Test?

Overall appearance

• Good proportion of solid to liquid

• Full pack with proper headspace

• Liquid just covering solid

• Free of air bubbles

• Free of imperfections — stems, cores, seeds

• Good seals

• Practical pack that is done quickly and easily

Fruit and vegetables

• Pieces uniform in size and shape

• Characteristic, uniform color

• Shape retained — not broken or mushy

• Proper maturity

Liquid or syrup

• Clear and free from sediment

Acidic and alkaline foods — acid matters!

Illustration courtesy of the USDA

As mentioned before, heavily acidic foods are less conducive to the formation of bacteria than less-acidic (or alkaline) foods. Bacteria grow best in foods that are neutral or only slightly acidic. The quality known as “pH” indicates the level of acidity or alkalinity. The pH scale goes from 0.0 (very acidic) to 14.0 (very alkaline). Foods with a pH level of 7.0 are exactly neutral. Highly acidic foods such as fruits inhibit bacterial growth. For foods that are not highly acidic, you can add acidic ingredients to reduce the danger of bacterial growth, such as adding vinegar to pickles or lemon juice to sauces. However, meats and many other foods are in the optimal pH range for bacterial growth, so if the meat is not pickled (such as “corning” beef), extra effort must be expended to protect the food from bacteria.

Botulinum spores are very hard to destroy at boiling-water temperatures; the higher the canner temperature, the more easily they are destroyed. Therefore, all low-acid foods should be sterilized at temperatures of 240 degrees to 250 degrees F, attainable with pressure canners operated at 10 to 15 PSIG. PSIG means pounds per square inch of pressure as measured by gauge. The more familiar “PSI” designation is used in this publication. At temperatures of 240 degrees to 250 degrees F, the time needed to destroy bacteria in low-acid canned food ranges from 20 to 100 minutes. The exact time depends on the kind of food being canned, the way it is packed into jars, and the size of jars. The time needed to safely process low-acid foods in a boiling-water canner ranges from 7 to 11 hours; the time needed to process acid foods in boiling water varies from 5 to 85 minutes.

Growing produce for preserving

Home gardening and food preservation go hand-in-hand. Watching plants grow and bud, and seeing produce ripen under the work of your own hands, is even more satisfying as you store it away in jars and bags. When you open that produce deep into a cold winter, you will be reminded of the fine sunny days when you stored them away.

By growing your own produce, you can choose to grow only the varieties of fruits and vegetables that you like. You can grow them with a minimum of harmful chemicals or waxes, pick them at the peak of freshness, and preserve them right away. Good produce at the peak of freshness is the best type of food to preserve. Storing mediocre fruits and vegetables will not improve their flavor. However, as your produce ripens in your backyard garden, you can preserve it in small batches, when it is ready.

Ensuring high-quality canned foods

Courtesy of the USDA

Begin with good-quality fresh foods suitable for canning. Quality varies among varieties of fruits and vegetables. Many county extension offices can recommend varieties best suited for canning. Examine food carefully for freshness and wholesomeness. Discard diseased and moldy food. Trim small diseased lesions or spots from food.

Can fruits and vegetables picked from your garden or purchased from nearby producers when the products are at their peak of quality — within 6 to 12 hours after harvest for most vegetables. For best quality, apricots, nectarines, peaches, pears, and plums should be ripened one or more days between harvest and canning. If you must delay the canning of other fresh produce, keep it in a shady, cool place.

Fresh home-slaughtered red meats and poultry should be chilled and canned without delay. Do not can meat from sickly or diseased animals. Ice fish and seafoods after harvest, eviscerate immediately, and can them within 2 days.

Most perennial fruits, like cherries and apples, will bear fruit at a certain time each year, allowing you to plan your food preservation schedule. With annual fruits and vegetables, you can plan by simultaneously planting early and late producing varieties that will bear at a certain number of weeks after planting. This is helpful in planting items like tomatoes — you can plant a small number of early bearing and another planting of late-bearing tomatoes to avoid being drowned in a flood of tomatoes all at once. Other vegetables with a short growing cycle, such as peas or salad greens, can be planted in a staggered schedule of two weeks apart, which will provide you with fresh produce throughout your region’s entire growing season.

Succession planting is a way to use the same garden space continually through the growing year. With succession planting, one crop follows another through spring, summer, and fall, so your garden is continually producing. For example, you can harvest peas or carrots in the spring, broccoli in the summer, and Brussels sprouts in the fall. Another use for garden space is to intercrop plants. By planting two crops with different needs in a small area, you can get more use out of your garden space. For example, try planting rows of lettuce with shallow roots close to rows of onions or scallions, which need deep nutrients.

It is important to plan your garden ahead of time. In fact, it can be great fun to receive those seed catalogs in the heart of winter, and think ahead to your summer garden in bloom. Be sure to carefully plan your garden according to the amount of room, sun, and hours you will have available to tend the garden — you do not want to watch your garden go to seed because you cannot manage it all. Make sure you buy enough quantities of all seeds and plants in the spring, so that you are sure to have exactly the varieties you want. It can be disappointing to run out of lettuce seeds in July and find that all the nurseries and garden stores already put them away for the season.

Using ripe and healthy fruits like these strawberries will result in delicious preserves

Selecting fruits and vegetables for harvesting allows you to pick and preserve the best of your garden. The best time to store your produce is right when you pick it, before it loses any flavor or becomes overripe. Realistically, though, you do not always have the luxury of enough time or freedom to put up foods that day — or you may not have sufficient quantity to store. For most produce, it is important to chill your fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator so that the ripening process slows. However, tomatoes will lose their flavor in the refrigerator, so hold them on a counter or a sunny windowsill until ready to prepare. Herbs can also be harvested ahead of time and kept in a glass of water until ready for preparation.

The following table provides information on selecting and harvesting many popular fruits and vegetables for preserving.

Vegetable Harvesting Guide

Vegetable	Days to Harvest	Harvesting/Selecting	Preservation Method(s)
Beans: black, pinto, white, northern, fava, or lima	50-80	Harvest plump, unblemished pods as they ripen. If you plan to dry them, let them dry on the vine until hard. In damp weather, complete drying indoors.	Freezing, canning, and drying.
Beans: green or yellow	50-70	Harvest when pods are pencil size in thickness and seeds are barely visible.	Freezing, canning, pickling, and drying.
Beet	50-70	Up to 1/3 of the beet foliage can be harvested for greens without harming the root. Dig up roots when 1½” to 2” in diameter.	Canning, freezing, pickling, drying, juicing, or root cellaring.
Broccoli	50-65	Harvest before the green blossom buds open into yellow flowers. Side shoots can be harvested after main head is removed.	Canning, freezing, pickling, or drying.
Brussels Sprouts	100-150	Harvest when full size, green, and still firm. Harvesting after a frost will sweeten the flavor.	Freezing, root cellaring.
Cabbage	60-90	Cut off cabbage heads once they are large and solid. Chinese cabbage leaves can be harvested as needed.	Canning, freezing, pickling, drying, or root cellaring.
Carrot	60-80	Pull up when the orange shoulder pushes through the soil.	Canning, freezing, pickling, drying, juicing, or root cellaring.
Cauliflower	55-80	Cauliflower must be blanched in order to retain mild flavor. Blanch heads when 2” to 3” across by carefully tying leaves over heads.	Freezing, pickling, or drying.
Cucumber		All varieties should be harvested when they are slender and dark green. Pale-colored cucumbers will be seedy and watery.	Pickling, juicing, or fresh.
Pickling	55-65	Harvest cucumbers at 1” to 4” long, depending on the pickling recipe. Leave small piece of stem attached to fruit.
Slicing	55-65	Harvest cucumbers when they reach 1” to 2” in diameter.
Corn: Sweet	60-100	Pick when silks and the tips of leaves are brown. Mature kernels exude milky sap when punctured.	Freezing, canning, pickling, or drying.
Corn: Popcorn/Indian Corn		Pick when husks are brown and dry; in damp weather, continue drying indoors.	Drying.
Eggplant	75-90	Cultivate at maturity — before the produce grows too large and woody. It should have a shiny finish.	Freezing, pickling, or drying.
Garlic	90	Harvest when foliage topples over and dries or just before first frost.	Freezing, drying, or root cellaring.
Kohlrabi	55-70	Harvest when the stem is 2” to 3” wide. Store with leaves and roots removed.	Freezing or root cellaring.
Lettuce (leaf)	45-60	Cut off outer leaves with scissors as needed. Pull up baby greens as they reach the desired size. Hot weather causes bitterness and may slow the growth for some varieties.	Drying, freezing.
Melons: Honeydew, Cantaloupe, Watermelon	75-100	When mature, stem separates easily from melon.	Freezing, canning, pickling, or juicing.
Okra	50-65	Pick after flowers fall and pods are 1” to 3” long. Harvest frequently to maintain productivity and prevent old, woody pods.	Freezing, canning, pickling, and drying.
Onion	100-120	Harvest when tops fall over and begin to dry.	Freezing, canning, root cellaring, pickling, or drying.
Parsnip	110-130	Dig up after heavy frost. Can be over wintered in the ground; mulch and dig before new growth starts in spring.	Freezing, canning, or root cellaring.
Pea: Snow (Sugar)	55-85	Harvest when pods are long and thin, just as the seeds begin to develop.	Freezing, canning, or drying
Pea: Snap	55-85	Pick when seeds are nearly full size.	Freezing, canning, or drying
Pea: Garden (Shell)	55-85	Harvest when peas are full size.	Freezing, canning, or drying
Peas: Black-eyed, cow, southern, or field	55-90	Harvest pods when young to eat like shelled peas; let them dry on the vine until peas are hard if you are planning to dry them.	Freezing, canning, or drying.
Peppers		Pick frequently to encourage new growth.	Freezing, canning, or drying.
Hot Peppers	60-90	Pick pods as they mature; use gloves when harvesting.
Sweet Peppers	70-90	Usually harvested when green, but can be left on plant until red, orange, yellow, or purple.
Potato	90-120	If new potatoes are desired, carefully dig them up after flowers die. Dig up mature potatoes when tops turn brown and die.	Freezing, canning, drying, root cellaring.
Pumpkin	85-120	Pick when uniformly orange, but leave 3” to 4’’ of stem attached. Rind should be hard and difficult to puncture with fingernail. Bring inside before a heavy frost.	Canning, freezing, root cellaring.
Radish		Pick when the color matures according to the cultivar.	Canning, freezing, root cellaring.
Spring Radishes	25-40	Pull up radishes when they are about 1” to 1 1/2” in diameter.
Winter Radishes	45-70	Can be left in the ground until frost.
Spinach	45-60	Cut leaves with scissors; pull up the entire plant when plants begin to show signs of growing too large and tough.	Freezing, canning, pickling.
Summer squash		Harvest when squash is roughly 2” in diameter.	Freezing, canning, pickling.
Yellow squash	50-60	Harvest when skin is soft and the squash is 5” to 8” long. Dark yellow, warty squashes will be tougher and seedy.
Zucchini	50-60	Skin should be soft and dark green. A tough outer skin will indicate a tough, seedy squash.
Sweet Potato	100-125	Harvest just before or after a frost kills the vines.	Freezing, canning, drying, or root cellaring.
Tomato	70-90	Let tomatoes fully ripen on the vine, or ripen on a windowsill if streaks of green are present.	Freezing, canning, pickling, juicing, and drying.
Turnip	45-70	Foliage can be harvested for greens. Harvest turnips when 2” to 3” in diameter	Freezing, drying, or root cellaring.
Winter Squash	85-120	Pick when the rind has reached the proper color for the cultivar. Leave 3” to 4” of stem attached. Rind should be hard and difficult to puncture with fingernail. Bring inside before a heavy frost.	Canning, freezing, or root cellaring.

Fruit Harvesting Guide

Fruit	Harvest Time	Comments	Preservation Method(s)
Apples	Sept.–Nov.	Each type of apple has a characteristic flavor and aroma that will develop as the fruit ripens. Look for apples that have developed the mature color with a fragrance that is easily smelled. The under color of red apples will change from green to cream. In all varieties, the flesh will “give” slightly when squeezed. In some varieties, the apples will begin to fall off the tree when ripe. Other apples will release easily from the tree when ready to be picked.	Freezing, canning, pickling, juicing, drying, root cellaring.
Apricots	June-July	Harvest when the fruit begins to soften and develop characteristic flavor and aroma. Apricots will bruise easily and should be handled with great care.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Blue­berries	June-Aug.	Mature fruit is dark blue with a light blue overtone; it is slightly soft. Fruit falls readily when ready for picking.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Black­berries	June-July	Fruit ripens to a dull black color and plump, juicy berries. Ripe berries will tumble from the white fruit cores by tugging lightly; unripe berries will not release easily. Harvest every 2 to 3 days.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Cherries	July-Aug.	Mature fruit is juicy, soft, and full-flavored. Different varieties have varying colors as they ripen. Cherries will retain their flavor much better if picked with the stems on.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Currants	July-Sept.	Mature fruit become softened and juicy with an intense color. If you will be making jelly with these fruits, harvest before completely ripe, when the pectin content is high.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Elder­berries	July-Sept.	Harvest when fruit is plump, color changes from shiny to dull purple, and it just beginning to soften.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Goose­berries	July-Sept.	Harvest when the berries are still slightly firm and have turned light green in color. Some varieties may have pink blush.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Grapes	Aug.-Nov.	Each type of grape will have a characteristic color and scent. Cut from the vines when the color has reached its peak and the stems have begun to turn brown. When removing the clusters, use scissors and be careful not to damage the vines.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Peaches & Nectarines	July-Sept.	Each variety has a characteristic flavor and aroma; taste a sample to be sure it is ripe. Mature fruit is soft and juicy; skins may slide off easily. When ripe, the immature, green under-color changes to light green or cream. The fruit is very delicate; handle carefully to avoid bruising.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Pears	July-Sept.	Pears should be picked before they are completely ripe, because they can become overripe quickly in storage. Pears that are picked too early will not develop full flavor and will become wrinkled in storage; pears that are picked when overripe will have poor flavor and hard, crunchy cells. Sample the fruit for flavor and ripeness, and look for fruit with small tan or brown spots on the surface. In all varieties, the flesh will “give” slightly when squeezed.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Plums & Prunes	July-Sept.	Fruit softens and develops its characteristic flavor as it ripens. Handle the fruit carefully.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Rasp­berries	June-Aug.	Harvest raspberries when they are deep red or bright magenta and can be easily pulled from the hull. Ripe raspberries should be very juicy and soft. Pick the berries every few days, as raspberries will ripen quickly.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.
Rhubarb	June-Aug.	Harvest leaf stalks when they develop a reddish color and are 1⁄2 to 1” in diameter, and discard the leaves.	Freezing, canning, juicing, drying, and pickling.
Straw­berries	May-June	Harvest strawberries when they develop a deep red color over most or the entire berry. Cream-colored sections indicate that part of the berry is fairly ripe but has not received enough sun to turn red. However, large sections of green on the berry mean that it is not yet ripe. The berries should be soft and slightly aromatic. Pick berries by pinching off from the stem, so that the green husk remains on top of the berry. The most flavorful berries are small, dark red ones.	Freezing, canning, juicing, and drying.

Herb Harvesting Guide

Herb	Comments	Preservation Method(s)
Basil	Pick healthy leaves all summer long. Plants will last until the first hard frost. Pinch off flower spikes to encourage leaf growth.	Freezing and drying.
Bee Balm	Harvest leaves or flowers throughout the summer. Plants will last until the first hard frost.	Freezing and drying.
Chamomile	Harvest flowers as they appear. Chamomile has a short growing season; you may want to stagger plantings to have flowers throughout the season.	Freezing and drying.
Chives	Cut flowers as they appear. Use scissors to cut chive spikes as needed. Periodically, cut the chive plant down to about 3” to encourage new, tender growth.	Freezing, drying, and pickling (flowers).
Cilantro/Coriander	Snip leaves as needed; pinch off flower heads to encourage leaf growth. Cilantro has a short growing season; you may want to stagger plantings to have herbs throughout the season. If growing for coriander, allow flowers to develop. Carefully cut off seed heads when they have dried on the stem.	Freezing and drying.
Dill	Snip feathery leaves as needed; harvest young flower heads when they are light green. Leave some stem on the flower head. If harvesting for seeds, wait until the flowers have gone to seed, then cut the head off, leaving a 6” length of stem.	Freezing, drying, and pickling (flowers).
Fennel	Snip feathery leaves as needed; allow stems to flower and dry before harvesting the seeds. Dig up the bulb when the shoulders appear from the ground, before it becomes tough and stringy.	Freezing, drying, and root cellaring (bulbs).
Lavender	Clip flower heads once the entire stalk is in bloom.	Freezing and drying.
Lemon Balm	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Marjoram	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Mint	Snip off leaves as needed. Note: Mint is an extremely invasive plant. Cultivate it in an out-of-the-way spot in the garden or grow it in a pot.	Freezing and drying.
Oregano	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Parsley	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Rosemary	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Sage	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Tarragon	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.
Thyme	Snip off leaves as needed.	Freezing and drying.

Selecting food at a store

Without the space for a garden, or the desire to grow your own fruits and vegetables, you will need to be sure the foods you buy are at their best for preserving. One good source of fresh produce is a local farmers market or food exchange. These markets usually offer produce picked within a day or two of selling. Sometimes the markets sell these foods at a bargain price — but other farmers may charge a premium for locally grown, high-quality produce.

Whether you buy from one of these farmers or from your local grocery store, choose your produce wisely. It makes no sense to expend the effort to preserve sub-prime foods. Smell, squeeze, tap, or pinch your produce to make sure it is at the stage of freshness you need. Some foods are a particular concern. Ripe tomatoes should have an even, beautiful deep red color, and have some “give” when you squeeze them. However, if the skin starts to slip off the tomato, or it feels squishy, it is too ripe. Tomatoes that are somewhat hard or that have an orange-red color are under ripe, and may have been picked so early that they will never ripen completely.

Berries are another concern. Once they are picked, they have a short self-life and develop mold easily, even if refrigerated right away. Your best bet is to can berries the day you buy them. If any of your berries develop mold, discard the moldy berry as well as any berries touching it — they are already contaminated.

Wrinkly vegetables indicate old, dehydrated produce. Another sign of age is stem ends or leaves that are very brown and hard rather than a fresh, green color — these vegetables were harvested long ago. Herbs should always have fresh leaves with no dry edges, and should stand straight on their stems with no wilting. Many herbs will wilt completely once they have been mishandled; if you want to use them fresh, choose healthier plants.

Sometimes grocery stores will receive a new shipment of produce before the old shipment is sold. In that case, they will put the new produce at the bottom of the bin and the older food on top. It may be worth it to rummage a little to find the best food. You can also check with the store to see on which day they receive their produce, and make sure you shop that day to get the best pick of the new delivery.

When you select meats, choose items as far from the “sell by” date as possible. Red meats should have a rich, bright red color without discolored edges. The meats should always appear moist but any accumulated liquid should not appear cloudy. Meat, poultry, or seafood should not have a strong smell — especially seafood. If your grocery store has a butcher, be sure to ask when the meat was processed or packaged in the store. Again, it makes sense to determine the day they receive new shipments and plan your shopping for that day.

Table of Contents