Preserving the Bounteous Harvest

Right then... all that planting we did in the spring for our Covid-19 Victory Garden has... well... born fruit. A lot of it... and not just fruit, but vegetables as well. Right now, our fridge is bursting with parsnips, prune plums (Italian plums) and tomatoes. The question now becomes... what, oh what, do we do with it all??

Option 1 - Freezing - Easy

This is an easy option. Overwhelmed by dozens of zucchini the size of your forearm or calf? Shred them, squeeze out excess moisture and measure 1 cup amounts into freezer bags. (Cause zucchini loaves need 1 cup of shredded zucchini). Label (always, always label!) and then pop into the freezer. Easy peasy.

There can be more prep involved as well. Freezing tomatoes is easy but first they should be blanched and the skin stripped off. Actually... almost all vegetables benefit from some blanching before freezing.

Fruit is better - we flash freeze our raspberries and blackberries on cookie sheets and then toss them into freezer bags. But... freezer space is at a premium sooo...

Option 2 - Canning - Moderate to Challenging

We've done a fair bit of canning in the past - things like jams, jellies and chutneys which are all moderately easy. All of those can just be mixed up and processed in a pot, put into canning jars, sealed and once the seal goes "tunk" or "tink"... depending... you are good to go.

We've also canned some apple and/or pear sauce, as well as some tomatoes... all of which need a water bath after being sealed.

While we have a pressure canner... we have yet to use it. Too scarey... a friend told me too many stories about people missing chins and noses after prematurely opening a pressure cooker and/or pressure canner. Sigh...

And... as anyone looking for canning supplies right now (September 2020) knows... they are like hen's teeth thanks to Covid-19. I must admit, I saw this coming back in April and stocked up on some more canning jars so we are well equipped. We just need to get off our butts and do it... maybe some plum chutney again this year.... mmmm... so good.

Option 3 - Drying - Easy?

Our experience with drying things has been limited to herbs. Things like dill and oregano and thyme which we will cut, bundle with string and then hang in strategic locations around the house. We kind of end up looking like an herbalist's shop... We have tried drying them in the oven as well but that seems to take an awfully long time for very little output.

For a few years now, my partner has been rumbling about getting a dehydrator... and this year... I bit the bullet and bought a 10 tray dehydrator from Cabela's. Woo-hoo!

Now... we aren't going to be making any jerky or any other meat products but... there are all sorts of possibilities before us... we could dry zucchini... or parsnip... or plums... or herbs... or tomatoes!

That is going to be our first experiment... drying tomatoes... We had hoped to use our little cherry tomatoes, but... the manual recommends blanching and de-skinning the tomatoes... which I really don't want to do for cherry tomatoes. But... some other people online have success just cutting the cherry tomatoes in half and dehydrating them that way... so that may be one of our first experiments.

After that... we might do prune plums... and maybe even some parsnip chips...

In the News - Food Security

For years, I've read about "Food Security"... and how, living on an island as we do, we should look at building up our food security. I have to admit, I've never really looked into it all that much, I just took it to mean that most of our food comes from "away" and, in any sort of a disaster, we'd be stuck. Huh.

Now that we're in a pandemic disaster... food security is front page news and... it means a lot more than just where the food comes from. Here's a definition from one local organization...

When a community is food secure, all of its citizens have dignified access to affordable, good-quality, nutritious food. While this may seem simple enough to achieve, the effects of globalization, the rising costs of real estate, and growing income disparity, are all conspiring to disconnect the average citizen from the source of their food.

As people lose the ability and skill to grow and prepare their own food, they become dependent on distant suppliers, out of season produce, and processed foods. In short, the source of their food is not secure and the quality is compromised.

Now that makes a lot of sense. It's not just where our food comes from (distant vs. local suppliers) but what sort of food we access (processed vs. fresh), when we access it (in or out of season) and how expensive it is to access (affordable or expensive). On top of that... with many people relying on restaurants, fast-foods, junk foods and/or the ever popular TV dinners... cooking has fallen by the wayside. And let's not even talk about vegetable gardening which, to many people, is a complete mystery. Then... of course... there's preserving food from the bountiful garden harvests - freezing and/or canning... which is another deep mystery.

In many ways, food security means us (me and you) getting as close to fresh food as possible and eliminating as many of the middle men/women as possible. So many different ways of doing that...

• shopping the perimeters of grocery stores - produce, meat, dairy, bread - and skipping the processed/junk food in the middle aisles
• shopping at farmer's markets and buying locally grown
• growing our own food - even herbs on a balcony is a step in that direction or maybe it's a plot at a community garden
• foraging for food - blackberries are an obvious first choice on the Coast...
• gleaning for food - people post when they have excess produce (e.g. an over-abundance of apples) and gleaners come and pick it and then distribute it to food banks, etc.

Seems pretty simple and low-key until we toss Covid-19 in to the mix... and then all of a sudden food security becomes front page news and a burning topic of discussion. Let's see...

• meat processing plants are reducing production and/or shutting down due to the virus (e.g. (Cargill meat plant in Alberta, Smithfield pork plant in South Dakota, JBS SA pork plant in Minnesota, and, recently, United Poultry chicken plant in Vancouver)
• foreign workers, who harvest a lot of the produce, are having a harder time getting into the country which might impact the food supply

There is, of course, a common denominator in all of this... the meat processing plant staff work elbow-to-elbow in very confined quarters. It's easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. And... the foreign workers are housed in very crowded quarters... again, easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. Wherever we have living beings crammed close together, it's going to make it really easy for any disease to take off... be it in pork processing plants or in dairy herds or fur farms or any meat market where live animals are sold for consumption.

British Victory Garden poster

On top of that... we have the United Nations warning us that the future could bring famines of "biblical" proportions in more than 10 countries. These countries are already teetering on the edge due to war, drought, locust plagues (I kid you not) and/or economic hardship. It won't take much of a push from the Covid-19 virus to tip them over the edge.

It's enough to give one the heebee jeebees... So, what's a person to do? After all, I can't fix what is happening, or going to happen, in Ethiopia... or anywhere else in the world. I really only have influence in my little corner of the world, all 8200 sq ft of it to be exact.

A few blogs ago, I wrote about the idea of Victory Gardens... an idea from the Second World War. I'm not the only one... type in "virus victory garden" and be prepared to be overwhelmed by a tonne of news articles about gardening taking off...

As it turns out, some cities are taking an active role in encouraging individuals to grow food. Victoria, BC, for example, voted to grow more food plants in the cities nurseries, rather than flowers. The food seedlings would then be delivered to individuals in need, who would continue to grow them.

Brampton - Backyard Garden Program

Brampton, ON, has taken it a step farther and started the Backyard Garden Program in which they are giving away free seeds and soil. This is a step beyond what Victoria is doing! Because, let's face it... most people don't know the first thing about growing vegetables. And while seeds do work for many things (carrots, beets, peas, etc)... it can be tricky if you're a first time gardener. The soil... the water... the location... all play a role. The good thing seems to be that there is always someone in the neighbourhood who knows something about gardens... I was reading this one article about an amateur gardener from Vancouver. Her neighbours are wanting to get on board with gardening... even though they've never done it... but at least they have the amateur gardener to dispense helpful advice!

I've also come across the idea that more cities should be planting fruit and/or nut trees instead of ornamental trees. While I'm not sure how this would work along city boulevards (pollution and a morass of fallen apples in the fall)... it certainly would be a good idea in parks and along walking paths. A few years ago, I was in Winnipeg, and came across their Public Orchard at The Forks... a nice little grouping of fruit trees and berry pushes which anyone can pick or harvest. Cool idea!

So, there is some hope out there... and it all begins with some small steps. When we started our vegetable garden... we started with one raised bed... which became two the following year... and so it's gone. This year, we added three small beds along the sunny side of the house. Just another few small steps.