How to Properly Freeze Vegetables

 If you want your veggies to come out of the freezer as good as they went in, following these tips:

1.  Beans, peas and okra are fine to freeze whole.  Larger veggies like peppers, onions, leeks, cauliflower and broccoli are better if cut into uniform pieces before freezing.

2.  Before freezing, vegetables need to be blanched.  Blanching is a simple process, just take the vegetables and drop them in boiling water for about 2 minutes (no more or you will cook them) then scoop them out and drain until they are totally dry.

3.  You can now freeze them in zipper freezer bags.  (make sure to get as much air out of the bag as possible, before zipping) You can also use a vacuum sealing system,  (this is what I use)  or plastic freezer containers.

Tomatoes are kind of a special case.  You can freeze them whole or quartered with the skins on, or you can blanch them in boilng water for one minute and then plunge them in cold water.  Their skins should peel right off.  I prefer to freeze them chopped without their skins or to puree them in my blender and freeze them as sauce.

I have been using planter bags for a couple of years now, and I cannot recommend them enough.  I have a small yard, with clay soil, so it is very hard for me to plant a garden in the ground.  When I saw Dirt Bags on a gardening show, I immediately looked them up online and found them on Amazon, and I bought four of them.   As an experiment, I planted peppers in one, a tomato plant in the second, potatoes in the third and a green bean bush in the forth.  I wanted to see which veggie thrived the best in the bag planter.

Much to my surprise, they all did wonderfully!  The potatoes were so easy, it was awesome!  When it came time to harvest them, I simply turned the bag upside down and dumped it in my wheelbarrow and the dirt was just full of beautiful potatoes.  No digging necessary, I just plucked the gorgeous potatoes out of the dirt, washed them off with the hose and took them right into the house to the refrigerator.  The rest of the stuff that I planted also was beautiful, healthy and provided me with enough to eat for the summer and put up some in the freezer to have for the winter.  The cost was a pittance compared to what I would have paid for all these vegetables in the store.

Image Credit:  Amazon

Raising your own food and storing it is the wave of the future.  Food prices are only going to keep going up, and it costs so little to raise your own, no wonder so many people are turning to home gardening and food storage to help feed their families......and that is just one benefit.  There are many others:

1.  Health - Eating vegetables is good for you, not to mention it helps reduce the waistline, something many people will love.

2. Pesticide Free - Your own food that you grow will not be doused in chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and growth induction hormones from the minute it is planted.  It is safer and healthier to eat than commercially grown produce.

3.  Living more "Green" - In more ways than the obvious, growing your own food cuts down on the gas used to deliver food, the plastic used to bag it, and if you compost the leftovers, it reduces the garbage you produce.  Not to mention that growing plants gives off oxygen, something we all have to have.