Top Foods to Grow For Preservation

Growing a garden full of foods you can eat now and preserve for later is a powerful thing, it increases your food security, and decreases your reliance on stores and the larger supply chain. It is also so healthy both while you are preserving and being able to eat from your garden during the winter. The act of harvesting and preserving your food takes time and can be a bit of a work out but I think that is part of the benefits. You are spending time being producing and keeping your mind and body active. The sense of accomplishment when you look over all you've stored is a reward in itself.

Below I will be discussing two categories of preservable foods, crops that are easy to store and last a long time, and crops that are easy to preserve through canning, freezing, or fermenting. Growing these crops will give you a level of control over what you eat not just in the growing months but in the winter months too and by storing food you are giving yourself independence from stores. In our current time it is easy to go to a store and get a jar of tomato sauce, some potatoes, garlic, and pasta but that doesn't mean its better. Even though I preserve food I still have to remind myself to shop my home first, at home I know where all that preserved food came from and how it was made! When I do check the pantry first before going to the store sometimes I find that I don't even have to venture out of my home on those cold winter days I can whip up a healthy home cooked meal right from my garden.

Lets start with crops that are easy to store first. These crops are very low maintenance and with the proper preparation and storage they can save for months. All of the below listed crops need to be cured which just means they need to be dried so that they do not mold. Onions, garlic, beans (not green), sweet potatoes, pumpkins, shallots and winter squash should be cured in a warm/hot well ventilated place. Potatoes need to be cured in a cool and dark place. Once the crop has been cured you can store it in a container in a cool dark place with moderate humidity, they should never get wet. The whole process of curing the crops is a way to transfer them into a dormant state. They will now overwinter safely and you can eat them any time during the winter! The goal when storing food over winter is to eat all of it by the beginning on the next warm season.

Crops easy to Store:

• Dry beans
• Garlic
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Pumpkins
• Shallots
• Sweet potatoes
• Winter squash

Sweet potatoes and potatoes are also very high yielding crops and easy to grow, this year my potatoes were all volunteers that I didn't even plant they just came back from potatoes I missed when harvesting.

Next are crops great for canning, freezing, or fermenting. Some of them are also very high yielding, or have a short growing cycle meaning you can grow and harvest them multiple times in one growing season and get a lot out of a small patch.

• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Green Beans
• Peppers (all kinds!)
• Okra
• Beets
• Radishes
• Carrots
• Rhubarb
• Asparagus 
• Cabbage
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash

The high yielding crops are cucumbers, tomatoes, Okra, green beans, zucchini, and yellow squash. These crops will produce a lot of fruit on one plant. These are also large plants which means they take more time to reach maturity and will take more space in your garden which is something to consider, but you can combat this with trellising. They are large but they will produce a lot and you will end up with more produce then you can eat meaning you get to preserve or give away the rest! This year in one harvest I picked 12 large cucumbers and as much as I love cucumber salad there is no way my family and I can eating all that! I was able to get 4 jars of picks out of that one days harvest. Peppers could also fall into this category of high yielding crops, but they are medium sized plants so they take up less space but also produce less then, for example, a tomato. That being said, peppers are essential for canning in my mind. Both sweet peppers and hot peppers can add so much flavor and color to your winter meals, and like the popular saying goes "eat the rainbow" all those colors and flavors are caused by nutrients that can be so beneficial for our bodies.

The quick plants are the beets and radishes. The beets and radishes especially are very fast growing plants. Radishes will grow to maturity in 3-5 weeks and can be harvested then replanted, or you can secession plant so that you have radishes to harvest weekly. Beets will grow to maturity in about 7 weeks meaning they can also be planted and harvested multiple times in one growing season. Both beets and radishes can be canned, pickled, or fermented. 

Rhubarb, asparagus, carrots and cabbage are not quick or particularly high yielding plants but are wonderful for canning and preserving. Rhubarb is a perennial that takes two years to harvest but has a unique flavor and can be used in both sweet and savory dishes. Asparagus is also a perennial meaning you can plant it once and reap the rewards for years. It is easy to can, you just cut the stocks and use them as is, its full of lots of vitamins and nutrients. Carrots are not high yielding plants because on plant makes one carrot and they take a few months to reach maturity, but they can be planted densely and are great pickled or canned making wonderful side dishes or soups. Cabbage is a staple and also one of the best for fermenting, you may have had kimchi before, it is commonly made with cabbage and its a fermenting process. It does need to be refrigerated but will can last for a couple months. A fresh picked cabbage head will also store well for about two months in the refrigerator if packaged right. 

This is just a short list and only a few ways of preserving food from your garden there is so much more you can do if you are willing to try new things and explore. If you are interested in canning, pickling, or fermenting I can not stress enough how important it is to learn how to do it properly. I would recommend you find a class near you where you can learn in person and hands on. Preserving food through canning, pickling, or fermenting can be dangerous if not done correctly but once you've learned how to do it, its as safe as store bought, more even because you know exactly what is in those cans and how it was made.