I see a lot of pictures of fruit here, but very little about preserving the harvest. We raise, grow and preserve a lot of what we eat and purchase very little from the grocery store. I would like to learn how to make and preserve prunes and fruit leather for example. Could we discuss fruit preservation? Maybe share recipes also?
Thanks
I do canning, dehydrating, freezing. if I had money Iād have a dry freezer. canning is what I know best and have the best equipment for doing, Iām still learning dehydration and donāt have good or much stuff to use for it.
Stephan has a decent video on making prunes they look delicious. He only grows Mount Royal i think. Also helps to have a good stone pitter, a good dehydrator as well.
Those look like Aldi eggs to meā¦ not sure if its regional but the cheapo eggs here look better than the ācage freeā.
my granny would freeze themā¦not sure if thats a thing now.
She also froze milkā¦
Just about everything can be cannedā¦ even meat. Thats what my mom did on our farm. We raised large gardens and everything was canned so that we didnt have to grocery shop much. We didnt grow any fruit thoughā¦ only wild blackberries.
Most of our canning jars were from yard sales and estate sales etc. That way we only had to buy the lids.
Having a nice cool root cellar. is nice. Ours was primitive. Can make fruit last a few more months and can do some extra canning in the winter months to last til next harvest.
Is that your root cellar or a internet picture? You didnāt specify.
We have a raised cement block floor and cement block room in the basement on the north side. The cement blocks are solid.and help regulate the temperature. itās good and cool in there all throughout the year.
The south, east and west walls have shelves. The north wall is the house foundation and has a window. The north wall also has boxes of canned goods and boxes for empty canning jar storage.
Hereās a picture I took of our fall cabbage and brussel sprouts from last year. I had my granddaughter square down in a skip in a brussels sprouts row. So I could claim I found a cabbage patch kid 
Iām the the fermenter around here, we fermented 70 lbs of shredded cabbage last fall for sauerkraut.
We eat and drink a fair amount of fermented foods also. I currently have 5 gallons of kombucha starting itās 2 week of fermentation. Weāll be bottling that next Sunday.
As for the eggs, we havenāt bought store bought eggs for years. They so store well unwashed on the counter in store bought egg cartons that people give us when we give them eggs.
I went into my grandparents 1870ās root cellar back in the 60ās, no-one was allowed there for safety reasons. Found a row of blueish canning jars with milk glass lids, zinc rings. Labels still legible; Spiced pickled apricots and brandy, my g-great auntās spidery writing in fountain pen. The apricots looked perfect. My grandmother said they had to have been down there since the 1920ās.
ha yes i have a small collection of them also the brown cocoa jars. I have a small collection of various forms of canning jarsā¦the ones with the glass lids and the bale that snaps shut.
Nothing tastes better than drinking out of a blue mason jar at least thats what i remember as a kid.
I think our rule was on the canned stuff if the lid was still sealed it was good. Weird how it works thoughā¦ if i can something i will eat it 5 years later but if i find some one elses canned goods that are a year old its āsketchyāā¦ something about the trust factor with your own stuff.
gosh noā¦ my old farmhouse has big pantries installedā¦ we had several root cellars that were hand dug and built well. The pantries stay pretty cool and were lined heavily with newspapers from the early 1900s. I guess back then on my plantation the more kids u had the better off u were.
I have enough food for a mild famineā¦ but not enough for a zombie apocalypse.
I like to dehydrate food and my extra plums are dried. You can make leather too. I also can and freeze although dehydration is so easy with a good dehydrator. I have used a Calbela model for the last four years. Awesome and reliable machine. Itās always running this time of year.
I have been thinking of doing a basement root cellar corner - has the setup you are using had any mold issues?
Storage in alcohol for longevity was the thing back then, still is for us to some degree.
My wife has made three quart swing tops of rum vanilla extract. Ingredients Rum, Vanilla Beans - pretty simple and delicious, probably a lifetime supply. My wife tells me she can extract the vanilla beans twice.
No mold issues, but we run a large commercial grade dehumidifier in the basement 24x7x365.
We canā¦ water bath and pressureā¦ fruit, veggies and soupsā¦ love to pressure can deer and beef and chicken stewsā¦ meal in a jarā¦ heat and eat.
Freeze, jams, whole berries, blanched veggies deer bbq, deer steak, okra, fish.
Dehydrate ā¦ deer jerky, figs, persimmons, elderberries
Dryā¦ shagbark hickory nuts.
Fermentā¦ pickles, milk
When fermented pickles start looking like thatā¦ about done.
Isnāt that counter productive for root cellars? I mean what allows you to store things like apples for months is the high humidity itself, with excess controlled through ventilation.
I would like to encourage you, go for it! I doubt youāll regret it.
Work with what you have, nothing in earth is perfect, expecially me.
Home made deliciousness āmeals in jarā my wife and I do many 
when I get time Iāll share with all of you my fermented whole pickle recipe. You remember back in the day, walking into a store, you seen a wooden barrel of pickles? You lifted the wooden lid and reached in with a pair of tongs and grabbed one? I have that recipe handed down from my aunt who where shop keepers. The recipe produces whole pickles just like you remember.
@JesusisLordandChrist ā¦ I make garlic dill pickles in my fermentsā¦ at least dill and sliced garlic cloves are the main flavoringsā¦ also a little mustard seed black pepper corns, red pepper flakesā¦ the brine of course has canning or sea saltā¦ and bay or grape leaves to give them crunch.
Good low carb probiotic rich foodā¦
Very close, homemade goodness right there 
My wife and I started canning, freezing, and pickling in earnest this year. Iāve dehydrated beef and venison jerky for years. We made an investment in tattler reusable lids after taking to people about the lid shortage of 2021. A root cellar and dry freezer is on our want list. The when is always the tricky part.
If you havenāt already you may want to take a look at the posts under the āFruit in the Kitchenā category. If you move this topic to that category, people who donāt have access to the Lounge will be able to see it as well.
