How to Store the Surplus from Your Home Garden Harvest

By Beatrix LaceAffiliate, Food and Drink, Portfolio

What can you do with surplus garden produce?

Having a garden can significantly reduce your household’s ecological footprint. After all, those tomatoes and cucumbers growing in your backyard don’t have to be shipped hundreds or even thousands of miles to reach your kitchen. Plus, you have control over what (if any) fertilizers and pesticides your food is treated with.

But what happens when your plants produce more than your family can eat before it spoils?

Of course, the easiest option is just to give the surplus away to neighbors, friends, and coworkers.

Hambre Hungry GIFfrom Hambre GIFs


Sharing is caring, after all.

But if that isn’t an option, or if you still have surplus left, what to do?

If all else fails, you can always compost any produce that spoils before you can use it. But that certainly isn’t ideal.

There are almost endless ways to prepare and store the excess from your garden, but I’ll go over three of the most common here: canning, dehydrating, and freezing.

Note: this post contains affiliate links, so if you follow any of these links and make a purchase, I’ll get a commission from that purchase. This doesn’t change the price you pay, nor does it impact the products I recommend. I only link to products that I either use myself, or would purchase for myself or a dear friend.

Books to Get You Started

opened flower book on table

These are my favorite books for learning how to prepare food for long-term storage. There is overlap in the content of some of these books, so make sure to look over them thoroughly to figure out which book or books you might need.

 

Canning

shallow focus photo of assorted jar lot

Canning may be the most popular method of long-term storage for home gardeners. Using heat and a vacuum seal, your food can be safely stored at room temperature to be enjoyed at your leisure.

With canning, your produce can turn into pickles, salsas, jellies, jams, soups, and sauces that your family can enjoy throughout the year. Some canned goods can last multiple years depending on how they’re prepared.

You may already have most of the equipment you’d need to get started with the most basic canning method: the water bath. This is an easy method you can use for acidic products like fruit jams and jellies, as well as many kinds of pickles. For this, you really only need a large pot to boil water in, and jars (like Ball or Kerr). If you already have mason jars, you just need new lids. Rings can be reused as long as they aren’t damaged, but lids need to be new for each application.

Here are some products you can use to get started:

clear glass jars with candies

Water bath canning is only recommended for acidic foods because the temperatures don’t get high enough to kill certain pathogens that can be present in neutral or alkaline foods. If you want to go beyond pickles and jam (say, for instance, you have a bumper crop of green beans that you want to preserve as just… canned green beans), you’ll need to go with pressure canning, which requires a specialized piece of equipment: a pressure canner.

(I know, I know, it’s obvious. Shush.)

You can use most of the equipment I’ve linked above to get started. If you don’t already have a pressure canner, here’s one I recommend. It’s simple, and designed for use as a pressure cooker in addition to being a pressure canner. (Many pressure cookers aren’t intended for use as canners. If you have a pressure cooker already, make sure to check and see if it’s safe to use as a canner, too. It’s a dangerous assumption to make.)

Dehydrating

red and black round candies

A somewhat less popular (although less daunting) method of long-term food preservation is dehydration. This simply removes the water content from the produce, making sure your produce lasts a long time without spoiling (provided you keep it dry).

There are a few methods of dehydrating foods.

First, you can use your oven, turned onto a low setting. This method isn’t usually as energy-efficient as other methods, though. Plus, if you aren’t careful, your produce could end up burnt anyway, even at lower temperatures. Some folks swear by this method, though, so you’re welcome to give it a try.

Second (and the method I prefer), you can use a dehydrating machine. Most good models will come with a basic guide for how to prepare your fruits and vegetables – and even meat jerky in some cases.

Here are a few machines you can check out:

  • This model by Elite Gourmet is a good place to start if you’re testing the waters of food dehyration. It’s on the lower end of the price spectrum, but it’s still a good model, considering that. Plus, the trays are clear, so you can watch the dehydration process in real time (although it is only a little bit more interesting than watching paint dry).
  • This model by Nesco is more in the low-to-mid price tier of food dehydrators, and it’s closest to the model that I have been using for well over a decade. It’s easy to use, and you can easily adjust the temperature to the appropriate setting, depending on what you’re drying.
  • This model by COSORI is a bit on the pricier end of what I would recommend for a beginner model of food dehydrator, but it is the one that I would upgrade to myself, for sure. It’s sleek, easy to use, easy to clean, versatile, and quieter than other models. I especially appreciate the timer feature (ranging from 30 minutes to 48 hours), so the machine will automatically turn itself off when you want it to, without you having to babysit it.

The final method of dehydration to consider when you’re first getting started is specific to your herb garden, and that is hanging your herbs.

This method has been used for hundreds, even thousands of years to preserve herbs for cooking and medicine. Simply tie your freshly harvested herbs, and hang them from the ceiling, letting them dry via the airflow in your kitchen or living space.

Obviously, this works best if your house isn’t all that humid. But for those who have somewhat drier homes, hanging your herbs to dry can provide a nice decorative touch as well as a pleasant fragrance.

All you really need in order to dry herbs this way is twine (like this) and something to hang your bundled herbs from. You can use hooks you already have, or you can buy drying racks like this stainless steel one or this more aesthetic “boho-styled” one.

Freezing

photo of blackberry fruits

The final method of preserving your surplus food is probably the easiest to do in a pinch, but the hardest to get right for long-term storage. Of course, that is freezing your produce.

You can, of course, simply wash and cut your produce and throw it all in freezer bags and forget about it. But unless you’re trying to get freezer-burned veggies, you’ll probably want to put a little more care into your preparation.

On the note of freezer-burn, though. You can actually freezer-burn produce on purpose in order to remove moisture. This is basically akin to freeze drying your produce. If you want to go this route, your best bet is going to be to spread your produce on trays that get airflow in your freezer, rather than letting them all clump together in sealed bags that trap the ice crystals inside.

I left “freezing” for last for a couple of reasons. First, while freezing can store food for a long time, you are relying on electricity in order to do that. If your power goes out and you don’t have a backup generator, you risk all your stored food spoiling.

Robert Downey Jr Frustrated GIFfrom Robert Downey Jr GIFs

Been there, done that. It sucks. So much.

The second reason is, well, because you’re relying on electricity, you’re using a lot of energy just to keep food fresh that you aren’t planning to use immediately. That’s not necessarily the most eco-friendly solution (although getting an energy-efficient freezer can help, along with making your household more energy-efficient overall).

However, freezing does have some advantages. Namely, you can prepare cooked foods in advance – beyond just soups and sauces like with canning, or spice mixes with dehydrating. So you can have anything from burger patties to full lasagnas ready to go when you need to make a meal and just don’t have the brain capacity to do more than open a package and push a few buttons.

(Again, been there, done that. There’s no shame in being a Very Tired Adult sometimes.)

Also, freezing preserves the flavor, texture, and nutrient profile of produce better than just about any other method of long-term storage.

If you want to give freezing a try, you probably have everything you need to get started. However, most freezers don’t have the capacity for long-term storage. So here are a few to take a look at:

  • This 7-cubic-foot chest freezer is great for long-term bulk storage. It only uses 0.6 kwh of power a day, so it’s energy-efficient as well. It includes a storage basket, but I would recommend getting some additional storage baskets like these to keep it from getting cluttered and disorganized.
  • This 8.5-cubic-foot upright freezer doesn’t have the issue of being cluttered and disorganized as much. Obviously, it takes up more room, but it is still pretty energy-efficient. If you have only a narrow space to put a freezer, this is a good option to consider.
  • This mini-freezer is a solid choice if you don’t need a huge amount of storage space. Because it’s small, it doesn’t use much energy, take up much space, or have as much of an issue getting cluttered as the larger models do.

And if you’re going to be freezing things long-term, you need to make sure you’re storing your food in containers that can withstand low temperatures for a long period of time. Here are a few options I like:

  • These reusable storage bags can work in any storage environment: in lunchboxes, cupboards, refrigerators, and freezers. They aren’t suitable for the dishwasher, oven, or microwave, but they’re easy enough to hand-wash and air dry.
  • These glass containers are available in three colors (as of the time of this article), and they are dishwasher, microwave, and oven-safe as well as perfect for storage of meals in the freezer.
  • Like the set above, this set of glass containers (also available in multiple colors) is appropriate for long-term food storage in the freezer, and they are safe for use in the microwave, oven, and dishwasher. This set has a variety of different sizes, so you can use your space more efficiently.

 

Additional things you might need

Once you’ve figured out how you want to save your surplus produce, there are a few other things I haven’t been able to include anywhere else – or they might make sense for more than one way of storing your food.

In addition to the mason jars I mentioned in the canning section, you may need small jars for dried herbs and seasoning mixes. Here are a couple I like, but there are a lot of options out there:

  • 24 empty 4-oz. glass jars with pre-printed labels, shaker tops, and a funnel for easy filling. This brand also offers sets that have fewer or more jars, so you can get however many you might need.
  • These glass jars come with pre-printed labels and airtight wooden lids. There are multiple sizes available, in case your garden makes a larger or smaller quantity than makes sense for a standard 4-ounce jar. This set requires a little more care (the lids are hand-wash only), but I think it’s worth it if you want that apothecary aesthetic.

It’s always a good idea to clearly label food you plan to keep for long-term storage, with the contents and the date it was processed. Here are a few options for labels you can use on different storage containers:

  • These labels are water-soluble, so when you wash a container after it’s been emptied, the label will also wash off without residue.
  • These basic labels are safe for use in the refrigerator or freezer, and come either blank or printed with “date” and “contents” on them. The roll is perforated as well, so you don’t have to fight with the roll as you remove the labels. (Hey, it’s the little things!)

Finally, if you plan to process your dried herbs into tea, you can store them in herb jars like I linked above, or you can put them into satchels or bags like these or these.

Happy harvesting!

Footnote: this blog post is an example of an educational blog post with affiliate links. If you would like me to write for your blog, check out my current rates for individual posts, or send me a message using the form below to inquire about a longer-term arrangement. I look forward to hearing from you!

~Bea