The easy preservation garden

 

Sunday, August 9, 2026

If you are interested in being more self-sufficient, to have nutritious food at the ready, reduce your food bill or just want to save the extras from the garden this year, there are simple ways to preserve many different crops from the garden: freezing Freezing the extras for winter, drying Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies, canning Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty, and pickling.

I only do canning of high acid vegetables like tomatoes or pickling so only a large pot is needed.  If you decide to can low acid vegetables, then a high pressure canner is needed.  Sites & resources for canning

Crops that are easy to put away for year round eating:

Beets, Basil, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Garlic, Green Beans, Greens, Herbs, Onions, Peas and Snow Peas, Peppers, Tomatoes and Squash.

The easiest to start with are herbs.  They thrive under neglect and are very drought and heat tolerant.  Spices are very expensive in the store.  Herbs are carefree and produce alot that can be dried or frozen to use year round.  My 2 favorites are making pesto from basil (Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil) and using a variety of dried herbs to make “Herbes De Provence” (Make your own "Herbes de Provence") that I add to almost every dish!  Since most herbs are from the Mediterranean region, they thrive in mediocre soil and dry conditions.  Start a kitchen herb garden!

For spring and fall planting for a preservation garden: 

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, garlic, greens, cool season herbs like cilantro and parsley, onions, peas, potatoes and snow peas.

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, greens, and snow peas should be blanched and then frozen.  Blanching stops the degradation of the vegetable in the freezer, increasing the shelf life to months.  Blanching simply means putting into boiling water and then immediately into ice water or very cold water to stop the cooking of the vegetable.  For the bigger veggies, 3 minutes in boiling water is sufficient.  For greens, just a couple of minutes.  After blanching, remove the excess water.  I like to then put on a cookie sheet in the freezer in a single layer.  After freezing, I scoop them into freezer bags.  This way your veggies will defrost quicker and you can remove only what you want to use for that meal.  If just put directly into the freezer bag, they will all freeze together in one big block.

You can also dry any vegetable, store in a sealed jar, and rehydrate when needed for cooking.  The trick is to make sure that they are dried enough that they will not mold.  If in doubt, your dried produce can be stored in the frig or freezer, taking up much less room than the whole vegetable.

I also like to grow sprouting broccoli as it can be harvested from for 8 months of the year.  Carrots and onions can be left in the ground over the winter and pulled when needed.  My favorite onion to grow is Egyptian walking onion.  It produces a small bulb that is just the right size for using for one meal.  It can be grown in a pot, too, and harvested year round.  Egyptian walking onions

Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in mid summer.  There are 3 ways I preserve garlic.  One is to harden off and keep several garlic bulbs to use fresh.  The second is to separate the cloves and put into vinegar with peppers.  I store these jars in the refrigerator.  This preserves the garlic and adds a little kick.  The third is to dry some garlic cloves to make garlic powder.  Quick tip-make dried garlic into garlic powder

Preserving the garden's bounty

For summer planting of a preservation garden: 

Corn, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, warm season herbs like basil and rosemary, peppers, squash.

I don't blanch my summer vegetables before freezing.  If you want to keep them in the freezer longer than 4-6 months, blanching is the best way to go.  For small peppers, I freeze them whole. Peppers a Plenty in September  Large peppers and all tomatoes, I slice and freeze.   As the tomato harvest heats up, any that we can't eat, I freeze.  Come fall when it cools off, I will take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce.  A few tomato plants give us enough to freeze and make sauce for the coming year.  Preserving the tomato harvest 

  For peppers, I also make hot sauce Quick tip-make your own hot sauce and dry them to make chili powders and seasoned salt.

For squash, I like to freeze them whole.  When I am ready to eat them, I slice them while frozen and grill.  If you are going to use them in recipes, I would cut them into the size you want to use in your recipes, blanch and freeze.  I also make spaghetti and lasagna noodles from extra zucchini, blanch them and freeze them in quart bags.  For the lasagna noodles, first lay them flat on a cookie sheet to freeze before putting into a freezer bag.  What to do with all that zucchini?!   

For eggplant, I make baba ganoush and freeze.  It is a tasty dip.

Green beans, I break into the size I will use in my recipes and freeze.  Cucumbers I make into pickles and relish.  Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix  For corn, the easiest way to store is just blanching the whole ear of corn.  After removing the silks, you can either freeze whole or slice off the cob and freeze the kernels.

All your summer vegetables can be dried as well.  Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

Now you are ready to eat fresh and preserve the extras to get you through to next year's garden!

My top 10 seed saving tips

Seeds from heirloom tomato bought in store

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Saving seeds has been the foundation of farming since it began thousands of years ago.  Seed saving is easy and saves you money.  Always save the seed from the best vegetable you grew! Or the tastiest you buy at the farmers market or store.

 

1.  Pick the fruit or plant that has the characteristics you want to grow again.  The one that was the biggest or had the best taste or produced the most or produced the longest or gave you harvests the earliest or was the most drought or pest resistant.  Whatever characteristic that you want to have in your garden next year is the plant's seeds you want to save from this year. 

2.  One caveat, you cannot get "true to parent" plants from hybrids or cultivars.  If they grow, they will often be totally different than the parent or could get weaker with each generation.  You need “open pollinated” or heirloom vegetables for the seed to for sure produce a baby like the parent.  You can always save seed from hybrids to try as an experiment, but don't be surprised if it is very different from the parent plant.  

3.  Some plants “cross pollinate” with others like it if close to each other.  Others rarely do.  The ones that do not are called “self-pollinating”, ie, they pollinate themselves.  Examples of cross pollinators are zucchini, pumpkins, and zinnias.  If you want to save seeds from them, you’ll have to either grow only one variety or plant them a mile apart and hope your neighbors aren’t growing them, too!

    4.     It doesn't cost a thing to save seeds from store bought veggies or fruits you like and you can end up with some great plants for your garden!  To be sure that the seeds you save will come back true to the parent, heirloom is a sure bet.  One of my favorite paste tomatoes is one I saved the seed from a tomato bought from the store.

  5.     Do not save seeds from any diseased plant as the disease can be in the seed itself and passed to the new plant.  You wouldn't want to save seed from a plant that is susceptible to disease any way.  You want to save seeds from plants that thrive in your garden conditions.  

    6.     For garlic, you save the best, biggest cloves.  You divide up the garlic head into individual cloves and plant them in the fall when it cools off.  Typically, sometime in October or November.  Most store bought garlic has been treated to prevent them from sprouting so you may or may not have luck using the ones from the grocery store.  Organic garlic is not treated. Your farmers market is also a great place to get garlic well suited for your area.

     7.  In our garden, seeds can be saved from tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, broccoli, cilantro, dill, celery, borage, salad burnet, garlic, okra, Egyptian walking onions (bulblets), and basil.  I have many zinnia, amaranth, garlic chives, celosia, and basil "volunteers" in the garden every year from seeds dropped by the plant last fall.

   8.  For peppers, squash and tomatoes, just scoop out the seeds, lay them on a paper towel on a plate and let them dry completely.  Some suggest for tomato seed to put them in water and let them ferment a bit.  The ones that sink are the ones you want to keep for planting, not the ones that float.  After drying, I put in plastic baggies and keep in the frig to prolong seed life.  Don't forget to label the variety and date saved.

I have finally found/grown two kinds of sweet peppers that produce well.  I'll keep saving the seed and growing them out.  They are now a mainstay for my garden.  This year I had great luck with California bell peppers so I will try these again next season. 

 9.   Many greens, like chard, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, will shoot a large stalk up then flower.  This is called "bolting."  The easiest thing to do is to let the seeds form, cut the stalk, then put the stalks with seed heads attached into a paper bag.  Let them dry thoroughly, then shake the seeds out.  Some may require that you roll the seed heads between your fingers to free the seed.  

You can actually re-sow seeds from cool season crops like lettuce, cilantro, parsley, chard, chives and get a second fall/winter harvest!  I re-sow seeding about every other week starting the first of September.  In about two weeks, you will have sprouting greens.  When they have grown a bit more, I will separate and transplant into pots and the garden.  I like starting seeds in long narrow pots what are self-watering to be able to move easily to the best growing conditions.  Can also move under the portable greenhouse when it gets cold.

 10.   I put my dried seeds in labelled ziplock bags and store them in the refrigerator, include the seed type, descriptor and date.  A picture of the plant can be helpful to remember the plant the seed belongs to.  Fun gift to give, too.  You can use any sealed container to save seeds.  The seeds last for years this way! 

Last year, I have saved seeds from the best tasting butternut squash I have grown ever, Giant Blue Feather lettuce, Egyptian walking onions, garlic, orange Cactus and California Giant zinnias, cockscomb, Turkish Orange and Antigua eggplant, my bushiest sweet basil and Cardinal basil, Purple Yard Long and Blauhilde pole beans, Christmas Speckles lima beans, many different types of squash and Jigsaw pepper seeds.  I left my celery, Red Malabar spinach, celosias, and some Giant Blue Feather lettuce plants go to seed for volunteers in the spring.

 

For more information on gardening, see these blogs:

What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?

October is prime time to plant garlic

Try self-seeding veggies and flowers

Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow ...
Growing zucchini and summer squash
Warm joys of winter squash

 Peppers are for every taste and garden

Ideal soil temperatures for starting your seeds
Outdoor seed starting tips

What we're harvesting in the early August garden

 

Sunday, August 2, 2026

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

It has been crazy hot again this summer with a good deal of surprise thunderstorms.  Right now, I am harvesting cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, lettuce, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, goji berry, yard long beans, raspberries, husk cherries, annual huckleberries, and tamarillos.  

If you are not growing these in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulched bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.

In pots, we have had great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, cucumber, greens, moringa, sweet bay, huckleberries, tamarillos and celery.

I have tried sweet and hot peppers in pots and the garden.  Overall, they seem to do the best in pots.  I am growing a few hot peppers-2 pequin types (red and orange), an ornamental small purple pepper with variegated foliage and Bakhoulti.  I’ll use the tiny peppers and the purple peppers in my season salt I make and the Bakhoulti for hot sauce and salsa.  

Preserving peppers

My sweet peppers are doing well.  I  have gotten many peppers off my Doe Hill and a few off my Tricked You Jalapeño and a maroon meaty sweet pepper from saved seed.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

The yellow crookneck summer squash in a pot died earlier.  It did well in the pot previously.  May have been vine borer.  It's best to wait until mid June to plant summer squash to avoid it.  I'm still waiting on the trombetta to start producing.  Eggplant is producing plenty to make up for it.

Growing zucchini and summer squash

What to do with all that zucchini?!

The tomatoes are really slow going, but we are getting all we want to eat fresh.  The Better Boy in a pot produced well for June and July but has slowed now.  Cherokee Purple, California Tulip and Chocolate Pear in the ground have all produced a few ripe tomatoes.  Mannon's Majesty is loaded but none close to ripe.  The Brandywines have a few small ones on it.

Choosing which tomatoes to grow

 

Okra just really kicked in this week.  I tried Heavy Hitter again and it is pumping out the fruits.

Everything you need to know to grow okra, in the garden or pot

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.    I had one last year that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it.  I put my new ones in pots and will overwinter them in our unheated garage this winter.  Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs.

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the two varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and finally had one survive this year.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach, but many do.  So, this is an herb I will buy each spring if overwintering does not work out, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Doing well on small fruits this year!  Will grow the same next year except for the annual huckleberries.  They are small and messy to pick but they do produce quite a bit in pots. 

Backyard fruit that can be grown organically

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

August 2026 Edible Garden Planner

The large, frilly plant is asparagus

Saturday, August 1, 2026

August brings harvests of some of the favorites of the edible garden.  Sweet corn, tomatoes, summer squashes (like zucchini and yellow straight neck), peppers of all types (sweet and hot), Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, pears, grapes, snap beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, tomatillos are all in season this month.

At the same time, it is also the month to plant for fall and winter harvests.  It can be hard to make room for new seedlings, but your pantry will thank you in the cool days of fall that are coming.

A secret to maximizing your fruiting vegetables like peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, snap beans, tomatillos, and summer squash is to harvest them continuously.  A plant’s driving force is to reproduce so by continuing to harvest, it causes the plant to put on more fruits.  There are many options to preserve the extras: Freezing the extras for winter, drying Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies, canning Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty, and pickling Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix

We have many deer, raccoons, birds and squirrels in our yard; deer bed down in our yard at night.  To keep the critters from snacking on ripe tomatoes on the vine, I harvest them as they are just turning red and let them finish ripening on the counter overnight.  Still taste great being picked a little early and gives the signal to the plant to produce more.

Quick tip-how I keep the deer away

Continue to fertilize with a natural, organic fertilizer every month for veggies in the ground and semiweekly for those in containers.  When fertilizing, scratch the fertilizer into the soil around the plant.  Nitrogen is the one component of fertilizing that is most used during the season.  If you leave the fertilizer on top of the ground, you will need twice as much as the nitrogen will off gas into the atmosphere if not covered.  Summer Edible Gardening Tips

Keeping consistent moisture to your plants is key.  Irregular watering causes tomatoes to crack and blossom end rot to occur.  Make sure your garden is getting 1 inch of water weekly either from rain or watering, being sure to water deeply at the base of the plant and not on the leaves.  Many warm weather lovers like squash, tomatoes and cucumbers are susceptible to fungal diseases.  If your garden is susceptible to fungal diseases, you can continue using a natural preventative fungicide spray weekly to keep it at bay and boost your garden's production.

Pots with large catch pans will need watering about every other day.  Self-watering pots can usually get away with weekly.

You can also start a second round of tomatoes and squash in July to have strong production from end of August through frost if you find your production typically drops in August and you are keeping up with watering and fertilizing.  I have been trying different summer squash too, looking for one that keeps right on producing for the entire season.  Trombetta has done great in my garden for the last 5 years.  The production is steady, too, so you don't have zucchinis over running your counter.  The only potential drawback is that the vine is a rambler.  It grows to around 20' long in my garden on the north side of the house.  You can have it grow between other plants.  Just be sure to get it moving in the direction you want it to grow while it is small as it roots all along its vine.

Summer peppers and tomatoes

If you had any lettuce from an earlier planting, they will have bolted by now.  Take the flower heads off and save the seed.  You can shake the seeds into your pots to get your fall lettuce growing.  Lettuce will not sprout if the soil temperature is above 75 degrees F.  You can start your seeds indoors or in a cool, shady spot in the garden (if you have any this time of year!) and then move to its permanent spot.  The first seeds I sow are ones that are four season types.  As I succession plant my lettuce every 2-3 weeks, I will switch over to winter hardy varieties next month.  I have lots of self-seeded seedlings growing in my self-watering pots and scattered about the garden bed. 

Never ending salad from one packet of seeds

Planting for fall and winter vegetables

I know it sounds crazy, but now is the time to start planting for fall and winter harvests.  You need to plant early enough for your veggies to be full size when frosts hit.  Add 14 days to the days to maturity listed on the seed packet and back it up from your last frost date for the time to plant your seeds.  It takes 2 weeks longer for fall grown plants to reach full size. 

What to plant in the August edible garden

A fall edible garden

Winter edible garden

Frost date look up

Daylight hours determine the growth rate of plants.  Since the days are getting shorter, it will take longer for the plants to come to full maturity in the waning daylight hours of fall than the lengthening hours of spring and with the cooling temperatures coming next month.  By the first of November, almost all growth has come to a full standstill until the beginning of January when daylight hours are back to 10+ hours per day.  

If you can't pick up transplants like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, kale, and herbs at big box stores or a local nursery, you can get transplants from on-line nurseries if you want to go that route.  Farmers markets may also have them.  

I have started doing more from seed.  I re-use 6 pack containers, peat pots or a rectangular self-watering pots, put starting mix in them, water well, then add seeds, covering with soil per packet instructions.  I just leave them on our covered deck so that I can keep them moist.  Seeds sprout super fast this time of year.  The other advantage for outdoor seed starting is that they are already acclimated to the summer temps so do well when transplanted.  

Outdoor seed starting tips

Fall planting guide for cool season crops

August is the month for starting greens (arugula, corn salad, lettuce, miner’s lettuce, spinach, mustard, endive, chard, lettuce), kohlrabi, onions, scallions, cabbage plants, radishes, peas, fava beans and turnips. 

What to plant in the August edible garden

In September, plant more greens, carrots, and radishes.  For our Zone 7a garden, the first 2 weeks of September are prime for planting lettuce.  Try sowing different cold hardy varieties at the same time.  Different varieties mature at different times, giving you an on-going harvest. 

 Grow lettuce through fall and winter

What to plant in the September edible garden

October is the month to plant garlic for next year’s harvest.  Be sure to order now before they sell out!  Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

What to plant in the October edible garden

For more details on varieties to plant, Cold season crops for your edible garden

Caring for your new seeds and transplants

Like in the spring, newly sown seeds need moisture to sprout.  Keep seeds and transplants moist but not wet until they get their first real set of leaves and are well established.  Then water as needed.  

Many crops can be harvested into December and beyond without any cover, depending on how cold fall is.  Some get sweeter with frost, like carrots, chard, and lettuce.  With cover, you can harvest all the way through winter and get a jump start on spring!

Below is the portable greenhouse I use.  I can get 10 large pots under its cover.  Portable greenhouse covers like this could also be placed directly in the garden as well.  I use it to extend the fall and winter harvest for potted greens, broccoli and cabbage.   Prepare for hard freeze 

My portable greenhouse

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver