Preserving Fresh Produce {Finished Friday #49} Come and link up your finished projects, too!

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This week we’ve been overwhelmed with fresh produce from our garden. This definitely isn’t a bad thing, but we have so much that we’ve decided to freeze most of it until we can get around to canning.

There’s been lots of yellow squash that is easily sliced and frozen for making Creamy Summer Squash Soup later. We have even more stored in our extra freezer at my parents’ home.

We’ve also had lots and lots of tomatoes, which we’ve blanched, peeled and frozen for making tomato sauce later. I like to freeze the gallon bags on a flat surface and then stand them upright so they take up less room. (You can also see a glimpse of a bag of chopped banana peppers and our veggie scrap bin that we store extra bits in until we have enough for a big batch of vegetable broth.)

We also have these tomatoes that were blanched and cooled before we peeled, bagged, smushed (the kids’ favorite part) and froze. This filled another 2 1/2 gallon bags. We combined the last half with the half filled bag you see in the freezer above.

And the tomatoes in this 5 gallon bucket filled another 4 bags for a total of 12 bags of tomatoes in our freezer alone. (We have a few more bags in our extra freezer.)

Oh, and these green and yellow tomatoes that we picked off of a couple plants that had to be pulled up because the bugs were getting crazy. (Plus the big batch of Salsa Verde that is already in the fridge ~ thanks, Tim.)

We also have a bag of unexpected potatoes that I don’t know what to do with yet.

So while we might have a lot done we still have a long way to go. Wish us luck!

While we enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors, we are also still enjoying many, many garden books together. Check out some of our favorite garden and plant books for kids with pictures and reviews.

Today’s Questions: Have you preserved any fresh produce so far this summer?

I’m trying to hold myself accountable to finish some of the projects on my to do list by posting each Friday about a project I’ve completed.

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Comments

Jessica says:

August 3, 2012 at 1:28 am

What a blessing it must be to have so much fresh produce. I planted late so I'm just beginning to harvest my garden.

Emily Dicks says:

August 3, 2012 at 1:53 am

Awesome! Really inspiring, maybe next year I will finally grow a garden.

Randomly Fascinated says:

August 5, 2012 at 3:16 am

Great ideas. My mom always has tons of produce from her garden too.
I would love to have you link this up at my linky party! http://domesticrandomness.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-to-inlinkz-first-linky-party.html

MrsB says:

August 5, 2012 at 5:11 pm

Those tomatoes look awesome! I actually have only done strawberry jam this year, I have been so busy with school…hopefully peaches will be canned soon!

Pretty Living

Suanna says:

August 7, 2012 at 1:03 pm

Last week we froze corn. I also have some tidbits of zucchini and eggplant that I froze for soup or something.