Garden Vegetables

It’s a cold January day in Kentucky – gray and dreary. So I just need a quick reminder of how good summer is! We opened up a jar of pickles to put on our hamburgers – pickles fresh out of our garden 6 months ago! Sure looking forward to starting the garden season again!

One of the benefits of vegetable gardening is being able to eat food picked straight off the vine. You can’t get much closer to the root of your food than your own backyard. But what do you do with your vegetables? Freeze? Can? Eat? Share?

Here’s some tips for using, sharing and saving your home grown produce.

Eat Fresh
Lunch: green peppers, cucumbers, carrots and tomatos straight out of our garden
Supper: Fajitas (tortillas and meat from grocery) green peppers and onions out of th garden
Snack: Sliced Cucumbers sprinkled with a dash of salt and a slice of Lemon Boy Tomato

Freeze for winter
Green peppers and Onions do great in freezer bags. I rinse, cut and freeze on cookie sheets. Then after they are crisply frozen, I store them in gallon freezer bags. Last year, we had enough to last all the way till February!

***In my personal experience, squash doesn’t freeze well.

Can it!
I love canning some of my vegetables so I have homemade pickles, sauce, salsa and other canned items all winter. They are beautiful in the jars and taste great. Plus we save money because we rarely have to buy jelly or pickles!

Share the excess
When you’ve eaten, frozen and enjoyed all you can, then make sure you don’t let the rest of the produce go to waste. Find a friend, neighbor, co-worker, or stranger and give them your excess.

Or take a bag to your local food pantry or resource center so they can give food to people who need it.

__________________________
Helpful Links:
Pick Your Own offers an extensive website with tips, recipes and guidelines for canning.
FDA Common Food Storage Questions

What about you? What’s your favorite way to enjoy the bounty of the summer vegetable garden? I’d love to hear!