Eating local food in the New Year

Aside from summer when the garden plants are flourishing and full of vegetables and fruit, this is my next favorite time of the year...

The holiday bustle is over, the New Year has begun and I fully begin to appreciate the value of my stored harvest from the garden.

Local food is the best food!

Last year, I made sure to freeze or dry as much of last year’s veggies, fruit, and berries as I could from the garden...

Straight from the garden, I washed, bagged, and then froze anything extra I was not going to eat within a day or two.  

By the end of the fall, I had quite the cache in the bottom of the deep freeze.  

Thankfully, the peaches, zucchini, tomatoes, greens, and berries that I froze, all wintered well.

After dipping into my frozen green beans and a winter filled with creamy peach smoothies, I tell you, I will never buy another bag of processed, frozen vegetables or fruit from the store.

After a brief visit to the steamer, eating the frozen beans were like summer happening all over again, the taste no different than if I had picked them from the plant that afternoon.

There are so many wonderful ways to preserve food garden treasure for the winter months, better than freezing, but it often seems to end up my go-to method.

Do you choose food grown in the area or your home garden over food shipped in?

What are your favorite preservation methods for storing your garden treasure and locally grown food?

What preserved garden treats do you enjoy the most?