How do you like preserving fruit and vegeta... - Healthy Eating
How do you like preserving fruit and vegetables from this year's harvest? This is a multiple choice poll.
78 Voters
only problem I have especially making marmalade I cannot fill the jars as I keep eating it
Eat freshly cut
Yeah washed 1st then eating
Hard enough for me to cook a main meal let alone do preserving. I buy fresh and consume
My harvest has been so minimal, thanks to poor gardening skills and drought, that I won't need any of the above, which will please Asda.
I freeze rhubarb and strawberries to make jam throughout the year. Make Apple and plum jelly while in season. On average I have about 50 jars in the larder all year round.
Stewing (stewed fruit for yoghurt, puddings or oatmeal topping)
I found a piece of ground at the farm which looked just right for a veg garden extension apart from a lack of topsoil, so piled it up with heavy rubbish soil and cow manure in layers and left it covered with a tarp for a year. When the covers came off it got rotavated and looked very servicable so I planted HUGE quantities of seeds.
I now spend nearly every waking minute picking and trying to work out what to do with all the fabulous bounty from my veg patch.
I think I will be more modest in my planting next year as I'm beginning feel there must be more to life..
In the mean time the gardener has planted 82 cabbages
Hi I don’t grow my own, so just eat what I buy/buy what I know I’ll eat
Just freezing for me Jerry. Excellent poll👍🌈
You missed the old-fashioned one of bottling! I have returned to this old way of preserving fruit - no sugar, just boiling stewed fruit into hot jars at boiling point and quickly covered with boiled-up lids. Last year's small experiment worked, so I have a shelf-full this year, and have done an experiment with veg as well (tomato, courgette and onion cooked with a little olive oil, same method) so I will find out whether that works. I decided when I moved two years ago that I shouldn't run such a large freezer, so I have a tiny one and bottling. I like to think that the electricity I use to cook and sterilise will work out less than running a freezer constantly.
I also voted for freezing and for fermenting, as I have learned to make sauerkraut as well this year.
I hope to do this next year if I'm fortunate to get a decent tomato crop 
I hope the veg bottling works well but did you make sure it had sufficient acidity?
Sauerkraut is on the cards for me as well or else the chickens will be eating a lot of cabbage.
I am not certain about the acidity - I hope I put enough tomatoes in. I will be very careful when opening these first experimental ones - if it hasn't worked I will need to find a proper recipe next year, probably using lemon juice and/or more tomatoes.
I wondered about using citric acid and if the big bags of it sold for descaling are food safe. I think veg pasta sauce is extremely useful and worth investigating . I hesitate to keep making chutney and pickle as it can build up in the cupboard when people forget to eat it.
The only fruit that I grow is rhubarb, which I treat as a vegetable and incorporate it into stir fries or roast to have with Mackerel.
Sauces
It's my first year growing stuff, so I'm on a steep learning curve. This year I learned about snails, because they left me with nothing to preserve!
If I have excess veg, I do typically ferment or freeze. I selected other too, but the other is that I'll leave certain things in the ground for next year too (if that counts!)
I freeze stewed apples and pears and blackberries to make crumble in the winter.
Hoping to pick Sloes later to make Sloe Gin. 😊
I’ve had my best crop of cherry tomatoes ever and I’m growing baby salad in trays but have eaten them all up.
I have fruit trees and bushes so am hopeful for a crop to freeze in years to come. 🍎
Damson Gin and Cherry Vodka on the go this year. De-skinned and froze a load of toms and made loads of soups and froze stewed rhubarb and plums for crumbles. First year growing veg got over-run with courgettes and spinach - lesson learned!
Stewing cooking apples e.g. with sultanas, raspberries, blackberries, marmalade, mincemeat, cinnamon, etc. Then freezing for use throughout the year until next harvest.
I really couldn’t be bothered, nor do I have that much time on my hands, chutney is cheap enough to buy as it’s not an item eaten everyday.
