A Food Preserving Lightbulb Moment

Do you remember a time when you had a sudden realization that completely changed the way you look at something?

I had this experience with food preserving a few years ago. I usually stop by the local farmers market once a week to supplement what’s coming out of my own garden and buy some of the things I don’t have room to grow. One morning as I was walking around during the height of the harvest season, I started to notice all of the great bulk deals at the stands. A big bucket of pickling cucumbers for $10. Tomatoes for $1/lb. “Look at all of these great prices!” I thought to myself.

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. “I don’t have to grow everything I preserve.” Whoa!

It sounds obvious, but up until then, I had focused my food preserving only on what was coming out of my own garden. I had never thought about buying in bulk from those same farmers I patronized each week for extra dinner veggies.

So, that year I gave some thought to what I wasn’t getting enough of from my own garden for food preserving and started to buy in bulk when I saw good deals. I started with high value items like strawberries and eventually moved on to things like broccoli and winter squash.

Over the years I’ve completely changed the way I think about food preserving! The name of my game has always been super easy food preserving (I don’t do anything that takes too much time and work, i.e. canning), but I started to think about the process of acquiring the vegetables for preserving as well.

My belief is that whatever is the quickest and easiest way to get things into the pantry is the best way. And sometimes that means simply purchasing vegetables you want to put away instead of growing them yourself.

The next few months in most areas is the height of the season for many fruits and vegetables. When you buy at the peak you get great prices and delicious produce with the added bonus of not having to tend to the plants yourself. It's time to think about what you can buy in bulk for easy preserving.

You can source things from the local farmers market, u-pick farms and your CSA. If you have the time, produce is often less expensive if you go and pick it yourself. (You can look for local u-pick farms here, and Wisconsin’s many Farm Fresh Atlases are an excellent resource.)

And if you want to learn more about how to make the harvest last longer by quickly and easily preserving vegetables, fruits and herbs, check out my book, Super Easy Food Preserving. Let the food preserving season begin!