How to Freeze Vegetables Straight From the Garden?

Question

I have a huge garden. How would I freeze my veg's so I can use them in the winter? What veg's shoud I NOT try to freeze. I have everything in the garden. I have broccoli, green beans, sqaush, cucumbers, tomatoes , 3 diff. peppers, pumpkins , spinach and so forth.

Please help me out with the info.

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publica...

There are various guides to freezing fresh veggies and fruits available.  This is just one example.

Some vegetables need blanching for different time periods before freezing, some (peppers and onions) can be frozen directly.  It's also more convenient to cut up some veggies - depending on your eventual use.

As stated before, cucumbers don't freeze well.  You can preserve them (and other veggies) by pickling them.

Answer 2

ok I began freezing my veggies last summer, best thing I EVER did, what a great thing to eat in those cold winter months. You can freeze or use almost anything from your garden, cukes will have to be canned into pickles of course.

As far as the broccoli- Soak in warm salt water in your sink for about 1/2 hour to get all the worms out. Cut it up as you like, rinse, then parboil (boil for 4-5 minutes). Drain immediately, soak in ice water, drain again, and freeze. I love those new handi-vac bags in your freezer bag isle.

For green beans- rinse and cut to preference. Parboil for 2 minutes. Drain and rinse w/ cold water. Seal and freeze!

Squash and pumpkin you cook all the way through, drain, smash it up and put in bags.

Tomatoes you can actually put slices onto cookie sheets, freeze like that, thne put in bags. Kinda soggy that way though. I like to make homemade salsa to can or freeze. Online recipes are easy to find.

Peppers-again rinse and cut. Parboil for 2 minutes.  Seal and freeze.

Spinach you cook all the way and cut drain and freeze.

Whenever I want to know how long to parboil I just look it up online! Good luck!

Answer 3

Other than the cucs most all veggies are freezeable. Cut, trim, and slightly blanch them, submerse in ice cold water to stop the cooking, dry, and the best way would be to vaccume seal them. Tomatoes would be used for cooking sauces. That is about they same as what all the commercial producers do.

Answer 4

The cucumbers are the only one listed that will not freeze well.

Answer 5

cucumers will not freeze well.  The squash, depending on the typer you planted could be stored in your basement.  Good goin' on the garden!

Answer 6

There are many great web sites for preserving the harvest.  There is a great book put out by the Ball Company (Canning Jars) it is called the Ball Blue Book, Guide to Canning, Freezing & dehydration about $7.00.  They also have an 800# to call 1-800-240-3340 for ???'s and recipes.  I love this book and it is so easy to learn how to do canning and it covers all types of preserving the food.  In todays world you have to be more self relient and a veggie garden is a good way to save money.  Blanch and freeze all but the cucumbers.                Good Luck!