Preserve

The abundance of our September gardens has led to a flurry of activity in our kitchen: canning, pickling, dehydrating, baking and freezing are some of the ways we are preserving the harvest so we can enjoy all this bounty in the colder months ahead. Consequently, the word on my mind this week has been preserve.

Preserving & sustainability: Although we are not an off-grid homestead, we do strive to be have a low carbon footprint. We enjoy using hand crank appliances (e.g. food mill, grain grinder, apple turner, oat roller) in our daily kitchen practices, and so when it comes to preserving food we are always experimenting with non-electric methods for preserving food. Salt, oil, brine, vinegar, sugar and alcohol can all be used to preserve colour, flavour and texture safely and beautifully. Curing, smoking, fermenting, and root cellaring are other ways foods can be saved and stored for long-keeping over winter. We hope to build an outdoor solar dehydrator next year so that we can dry foods without running electricity. Having all these wonderful foods preserved in our pantry and cellar also means we can eat locally all year round, our “food miles” are reduced, and we are less reliant on the grocery store.

Preserving skills: Recently we held a workshop here at our farmstead on the art of vegetable fermentation. Together the workshop participants made a huge cabbage-vegetable medley using our fresh garden vegetables, salt brine and lactic acid fermentation. Fermentation is ecologically sound (it doesn’t require any electricity), and it is also extremely simple, quick, cost effective, can be done in small batches, and does not heat up the house! Fermentation creates unique flavourful probiotic foods that have enhanced nutrition and promote healthy gut flora. Fermentation is also an age-old method that has been used around the world in all cultures as an effective way to preserve food, and in this way connects us with past generations. Not only did participants take home their own jars of fresh veggie ferment, but they also took home new skills and confidence in this way of food preserving.

Preserving means sharing: Preserving goes hand-in-hand with sharing. In the fermentation class we were sharing skills so the households of each participant could become more self-reliant, but we were also creating community as we shared the work together around the tables. When our family cans dozens of jars of berry jam or salsa, we are looking forward to sharing these during meals with friends and family. The photo above shows an abundance of apples that were shared with us by a neighbour, which we transformed into applesauce to be shared with others in return.

Preserving seeds, stories & plant diversity: At Swallowtail Farmstead we are preserving seeds from many of the heirloom vegetables and medicinal herbs that we grow. The preserving of these varieties gives us the assurance that we can grow these wonderful varieties again next year, but also helps to keep these seed stories/varieties alive. We are volunteering in a Community Grow Out project with Seeds of Diversity (a Canadian non-profit seed saving organization). As part of this program we grow out unique heirloom seed varieties that have been selected for being “at risk” (of being lost), and actively share them with our community. This year we grew an old variety of ground cherries, two types of cherry tomatoes, and two types of bush beans. If you get our weekly veggie boxes you will already have seen and tasted some of these varieties. If you would like any of these seeds to grow yourself we are happy to share what we have preserved.

What stories, seeds or foods are you preserving this season?