“Food security is not in the supermarket.
It’s not in the government.
It’s not at the emergency services division.
True food security is the historical normalcy of packing it in during the abundant times,
building that in-house larder,
and resting easy knowing that our little ones are not dependent on next week’s farmers’ market
or the electronic cashiers at the supermarket.”
―
I have been asked some questions about my food preserving – did I do any canning this year? Did I grow a garden?
Oh, ladies, indeed we did! It was just too busy to document most of it … in fact, of all years, this is not the time to skimp out and take a break from gardening … as I’m sure you all can see by the rising food costs in the super markets.
This past summer was most likely our busiest summer as a family – after establishing ourselves for a year here on Prince Edward Island, we were into our second summer of ‘real life’ – and it was busy! My husband is working on a produce crop for our income (I keep meaning to post about that, but perhaps next time …) and that kept him very busy – and very tired – for most of the summer. The two older girls worked part time at an an organic farm (just beside us) and ran a small scale flower farm — all which was very time consuming. We sold the flowers on the weekend at the local farmer’s market, which kept us busy on Saturdays.
When the children were not helping daddy in his field during the week, they were helping me with the produce from our own family garden.
I have always been one to encourage hard work for a family unit, but also to allow time for play and creativity and relaxing – this year, it felt like more work than play but we survived. It was a little bit tricky to manage all three jobs and still put away enough food without the big girls’ help (what lovely daughters I have!). We hope to be better organized next year with our schedules and still maintain our large family garden, while growing our farming business here on our property, and still having time helping out our organic friends (they are such a blessing to our family!).
So … all that introduction is to say – yes, I indeed kept up with the preserving, putting away food and canning.
There would never be a summer where I could give it up, especially while raising a family! In fact, our vegetable garden is such a blessing to our family — we doubled our carrot bed size and doubled our potato crop, along with onions. We noticed that those were the three things we ran out of quickly by around February. The garden was large and lots of work but once we tuck away all these jars of home-grown food into our Provision Room, it does bring a feeling of humble success to our family. Now that we are into November, we feel that everything is pretty much tucked away and ready for the long, cold winter that is coming.
In our Provision Room, you will find a full grocery store of potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, squash, cabbages, pasta sauce, vegetables, fruits, pickles, jams and jellies, soups and stews – and more! It is one of my favourite rooms in the house! For the past 8 or so years, I have worked in the vegetable garden with the children, turning our lifestyle into one of home economics, trying so very hard not to rely on the grocery store as much as a regular family. With a dozen people in our family, we need to be careful with our food budget and this garden has truly worked in our favour. I would encourage everyone who cares about where their food comes from to plant a garden – big or small – and start providing food for your family. It takes a lot of hard work and many, many failures (why do my cabbages rot so early in my cold room every year?) but we all need to learn these good old fashioned skills. I truly believe they are very important, especially in these strange times that we are living in.
When we moved from Ontario to PEI, and walked through our new home for the first time, I was absolutely overjoyed to find a cold room in the basement of our old home – perfect for all my plans and even nicer than our last Provision Room, albeit smaller. We moved all the dry goods into a different section of the basement and are storing the garden provisions and canned goods in this cold room.
Our carrot harvest was so large and wonderful this fall that they are all stored in shaving in a giant 4’x4′ wooden crate in the cold, unheated garage, along with our crates of potatoes and dried baking beans. It was such a large harvest there was no way I could fit it into my Provision Room! I will bring in the food as I need it, but for now, it’s snuggled safely into the garage outdoors. Even after years of gardening, there are still problems and things to learn.
The onions were plentiful, however I still need to work on drying them more thoroughly as some of them have not survived into November. We still have a large amount of onions, but it is something I need to work on (curing) for next year. Our cabbages were plentiful and wonderful; we grew enough for two cabbages per week for the winter months. However, they too need to be cured differently as I noticed a few rotting on the shelves this morning – which, let me just say, is very frustrating after weeks and weeks of growing, weeding, watering, caring and harvesting.
I have put up enough soups for the winter months and have resisted opening the jars until the baby arrives in due time. Having canned soups and stews on hand is an amazing help for me, especially with a newborn and homeschooling duties in the morning.
We also harvested more tomatoes than ever and put up so much pasta sauce that I pray we will have enough until next summer. With the tomatoes, I also made BBQ sauce, rhubarb ketchup, salsa and regular ketchup. You can never have enough tomatoes, in my opinion!
The jams and jellies and fruit preserves were restocked for winter – giving us more than we need for pies, baking and crisps. Praise God!
One of favourite vegetables … spaghetti squash!
“When used wisely, home preserving bestows the joy in making something with your own hands
and provides a ready supply of useful and delicious foods for pleasurable eating every season of the year.”
– Carole Cancler, Home Preserving Bible
We had a very successful year of corn – and while we did buy some from local Mennonites, it also encouraged us to grow more next year. We will not need to buy any from outside sources next year, Lord willing. Raccoons were always a problem in Ontario, but here, for some reason, we are raccoon free (and if you have grown corn, you know raccoons are not a good thing to have around!).
(Just a note, yes, I will be blocking this window where the light was coming in – I have made some curtains to blacken out the light, as cold rooms should be dark.)
This year, our harvest was heavy and wonderful, after all the labour and weeding, watering and waiting. From seed to harvest, it is a long journey, filled with sweat and dirty hands and hard work. But is it it worth it?
As you open that jar of tomato sauce and use it to serve up your home raised chicken with homegrown potatoes, cabbages and carrots (a favourite with us) … there is nothing that tastes better.
I thank the Lord for the energy to work the garden this past year and pray for sustaining energy next year.
by Gigi
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