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Adding to Our Food Storage in Preparation for Job Loss

September 27th, 2017 at 04:14 am

I spent the day canning and as much work as it is, I now have an additional 24 pints of potatoes on the shelves and Mom has 8 for her. It goes a lot faster when two people are doing the work, but even so we were at it for 4 hours with only a five minute break.

I hope to do 20 more pounds in a couple of days, but it depends on whether they have any at the no-spray farm or not. I am still trying to track down more green beans as I'd like to put up another 20 pounds. And I'll need to track down some sweet meat squash as I did not grow any this year, though I've got acorn squash growing. That doesn't keep for 10 months, though, just a few. Sweet meat keeps a long time.

I put in a pretty large order of freeze dried foods. I've been cooking with some of that fairly frequently, especially the chopped onions, celery, carrots, and bell peppers. I find it much easier on days that I have arthritis flare ups or exhaustion caused by the auto immune stuff, that I can still cook without having to peel and chop things, I just have to rehydrate it first.

I will probably do one more order next month when their semi-annual sale is on. That is the time to order the freeze-dried meats because the discount is substantial. They work great in chili, spaghetti, and tacos. And in soups. I like this company a lot as it is all non-GMO certified with almost everything coming from North America, most of it the US.

I'll have to put it on hold after that until DH gets another job. We should be able to pretty much weather six months without having to go to the grocery store except for greens once the garden dies.

6 Responses to “Adding to Our Food Storage in Preparation for Job Loss”

  1. PatientSaver Says:
    1506556999

    I thought you were preserving veggies you grew. Just wondering, what is the advantage to buying produce to preserve as opposed to just buying the veggies in winter? It sounds like a lot of work.

  2. LuckyRobin Says:
    1506559070

    I do preserve what I grow, but I had to make some choices this year about what to grow and green beans, corn, and potatoes aren't things I grew this year. We needed to let one large area lie fallow this year. My onions and garlic didn't do very well, so they won't last a year like last year's crop did. My peppers were a bust. Our tomatoes have only been turning red for about two weeks now and they are taking their sweet time about it. And our apple trees didn't do so well, either. A month of smog cap really stunted things.

    I can get vegetables and fruits I don't grow very cheaply in season where I live. Especially ones that have not been sprayed. I live in a very hippie yuppie community, so a lot of farmers use organic practices, but don't want to shell out the money for the USDA certification. Buying them in the winter is far more expensive, although there will be good sales on apples and cabbage and squash through the winter.

    When I know the source and I know that there are not additives, preservatives, artificial colors or the exact ratio of sugar or salt in something, it is better. We've had too many food allergy issues to leave that up to chance. I am also preserving at the height of freshness, as opposed to buying "fresh" veggies that have sat on a refrigerated truck for a week going across the country. Although I do still have to do that for greens once the ground freezes. And I do buy strawberries out of season on occasion because I love them.

    I could buy non-organic can goods for cheaper, but not organic or no spray ones (except organic tomato sauce).

    So long story short, crap garden year and couldn't plant all I wanted. LOL, I think my response here is longer than my original post.

  3. PatientSaver Says:
    1506599449

    Thanks for explaining. I do agree about buying local and fresher produce in your own neighborhood/town. We have some farmers too that say say they don't spray but don't want to pay for certification. I've been tempted to buy from them, but how do you know for sure? Actually, I recently read that half of what is labeled organic in the stores have pesticide residue, more than the unavoidable small amount of spray that may waft over from an adjacet non-organic field. There's no policing/enforcement, that's the problem, I think. But anyway, sonds like living in a "hippie" area has its perks!

  4. LuckyRobin Says:
    1506621713

    It pays to get to know your farmers. Here there are some that stake their reputations on being no spray and they are rewarded with customer loyalty. There is always chemical drift from other farms. It's a fact of life. But I worry more about what is in the store claiming to be organic, because let's face it, it is not hard to put the wrong little sticker on the piece of fruit. And if they happen to be out of organic bananas, I've heard of places that just change the stickers. All you can do is hedge your bets. But I trust a farmer that I speak to and can see their farming practices in person, over the produce manager of a grocery store.

    There are also some limited spray farms as well. There are some orchards that only spray once, sometimes twice if bugs or worms are really bad that year, and it is early in the season. They don't spray at all during the last two months of development.

    I worry about the dirty dozen fruits and veggies and some I don't worry about at all, like oranges, lemons, limes, pineapple, and bananas (though I will buy organic bananas if they are the same price, which they often are). Anything with a thick skin. I worry about hormones and excessive antibiotics and am very concerned about GMO. I don't mind hybrids, but that is breeding two varieties together to get a superior, though often sterile offspring. But GMO doesn't do like to like. It does like to unlike, inserting genes from other species into a plant or animal. That bothers me.

    So I do my best to find what I can be sure of. If it came down to it, though, if we didn't have the ability to be this picky, we'd do what he had to do to eat. No artificial crap, but conventional fruit, veggies, and meats.

  5. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1506665767

    Are you sure you are losing your jobs?

  6. rob62521 Says:
    1506893282

    You have been very busy canning. I bet you and your mom were tired after that long session. But you have some lovely food stuffs to show for it. Very smart on your part.

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