Preserving Fruit:

Preserving Fruit from Your Garden

by N.A. Rogers

Ever have a surplus crop of tomatoes? Do your neighbors cringe when they see you heading their way with a Ziplock bag of summer squash and cucumber? Garden vegetables, fresh herbs, and fruit are some of the best perks of gardening, but there’s no reason to stop eating the spoils from your garden just because summer or the harvest is over.

Preserving fresh produce from your garden is a fine art, but it's easy to learn. Fresh fruits and vegetables can be dried, canned, pickled, frozen, or made into jams, jellies, relish, and preserves. If you’re new to preserving or you don't know the best way to preserve your bounty for winter eating, this article can help set you on the right direction.

Drying
Drying is the best means for preserving herbs and legumes. To dry herbs, either spread leaves flat on drying screens, or tie them loosely in bunches and hang upside down in a dry, warm place that gets a lot of good air circulation (they can be in brown paper bags too). For legumes, spread unshelled beans on drying screens out in the sun until the pods are fully dry. Then shell and store beans in paper or plastic bags. Dried beans make superb soup starters in the winter. If you’re particularly brave, you can try sun-drying tomatoes.

Another way of drying fruits and vegetables which is tad easier is to employ a store-bought dehydrator, found at any outlet with a kitchen department.

Freezing
Now for one of the easiest methods of preserving your garden babies... if you have the freezer space, that is. Freezing is best for small vegetables and berries or sliced fruits, but freezing should be avoided for leafy vegetables.

• Berries: Small berries like raspberries and blueberries can be frozen whole. Strawberries can be frozen whole or sliced. For a delicious summer treat freeze whole berries on cookie sheets, then eat straight from the freezer.
• Corn: Cut kernels off cobs and spread flat on cookie sheets. Freeze, then store in Ziplock plastic bags.
• Peas: Shell and then spread on cookie sheets in freezer. Store in Ziplock bags.
  

Canning
There are numerous methods of canning, but most depend on heat and sterility. Fortunately, any kind of vegetable or fruit that you grow in your garden can be canned. You’ll need a pot large enough to hold jars of produce, sterile jars, and rings. If you elect to try canning produce, be sure to find a good set of directions and follow them carefully so you don’t introduce bacteria into the food you’re preserving.

Jams, Jellies, Preserves, and Butters
Fruits, and to a lesser extent vegetables, have a natural substance called pectin which combines with sugar and heat to thicken the fruit syrup when it’s cooked. Generally, fruit is cooked with sugar and water, with or without additional spices or other flavorings, then ladled or poured into jars while still hot for sterilization purposes. All kinds of recipes for making jams are available in good cookbooks or they are found online. In general, preserves are made with whole fruit, jams are crushed, and jellies are strained of every last bit of fruit pulp.

Pickles and Relishes
Pickles and relishes employ salt, vinegar, and often spices to preserve vegetables and fruits in a brine. This is a very old form of preserving and goes back hundreds and hundres of years. Though a lot of history's most famous pickled preserves have been made obsolete due to freezing and refrigeration, many remain, such as cucumber "pickles" and pickled hot peppers. But corn, melon, onions, and many other kinds of fruits or veggies can be pickled as well.