After spending most of the summer fighting bugs and insects and praying for rain to grow vegetables that are fit to eat, some of our gardeners like to store surplus vegetables. When I was a youngster at home, stored vegetables made up a large part of our food supply.
Among those items that seemed to store well were Winter radishes (the types that looked more like beets), celery set in sand in boxes and kept in a root cellar, fall pumpkins which did not last beyond Christmas, and squash, which were always stored in a warm attic.
These did not keep well in the storage cellar. Cabbage was pulled out by the roots, wrapped in paper, and hung up by the roots. It would last until Spring.
Turnips, rutabagas, and potatoes were stored in the root cellar in bins. Carrots and parsnips were stored in sand, although parsnips were better if they were frozen before we used them.
Today things have changed. There is no longer the need to store so much because, in most urban areas, it is possible to buy fresh produce practically every month of the year.
Quality Varies with the Season
The quality of stored vegetables varied with the seasons. It seemed as though when we had a dry fall with cloudless skies, everything we stored kept particularly well, but if it was a wet fall, things never seemed to keep well.
That applies today, as it did in the early days. The amount of starch that is stored up as a result of bright, sunny weather determines how well vegetables will keep and how well they will hold up in transit.
The need for storage still exists in rural areas where fresh vegetables are not available. However, even here, the deep freeze units are changing the picture from surplus in storage to processing by freezing.
We always looked upon freezing as a spoilage process. Anything that was frozen was not good for storage purposes.
Today, freezing surplus vegetables is the best way to keep them in storage because you store only the edible part, and you can even cook or bake things before storage.
Uniform Temperature Is Important
The main thing in common storage is to keep the temperature as uniform as possible, and the best place to do this is underground with some means of permitting the air to change with the outside air.
It is more important that the air temperature be constant than that it be set at any given temperature.
Pumpkins, squash, melons of the larger types rather than cantaloupes, winter apples, and pears will keep very well if packed with air dry hay or straw and kept at a temperature around 45° to 50° degrees Fahrenheit.
Sweet potatoes should be cured at a temperature of 80° degrees Fahrenheit for two weeks and then stored in an airy room at 55 degrees F.
Freezing Baked Sweet Potatoes
Gardeners with surplus vegetables should consider the advisability of having a deep-freeze storage box. There is no limit to what can be frozen and stored.
Everything considered, the most satisfactory use of the deep freeze is to store baked sweet potatoes. You can buy storage sweet potatoes until early spring, but the quality deteriorates with time.
I tried small and large potatoes at different times. I found that the large potatoes, which were stored best in ordinary storage, also were best for baking and freezing.
The large (Jumbo) sweet potato is looked on with disfavor in the markets, and you won’t get them unless you grow them or know some grower who will give you these in preference to feeding them to his stock.
They are fully mature and, when baked, can be frozen and kept in storage for several years.
On October 1st, I took two bushels of these, piled them in an electric oven, and baked them until they were ready to serve without being mushy.
I cooled them, wrapped them in waxed paper, and packed them in small cardboard boxes. Some of these I used two years later, and they were delicious.
Freezing Corn-on-the-Cob
You can do the same with carrots, beets, and squash. Sweet corn can be put raw on the cob. When you use it, dump the frozen ears in boiling water.
As soon as the kernels are tender, serve it. It must be eaten at once because the cob will still be frozen and will cool off the kernels. You avoid any cob flavor by this method.
Outdoor Pit Storage
Something should be said about the outdoor storage of vegetables. The main thing in outdoor storage is to keep the pits dry and build on high ground where water will drain away.
Celery can be packed together in a pit and covered with straw and a tarpaulin to keep it from freezing.
Cabbage can be stored in a pit with the heads resting on straw or hay and the roots up. Straw is piled over them, and a few boards are laid on top to shed water.
I saw broccoli and cauliflower, which had not matured fully, placed together in a frame, boards set above the edges of a pit that was covered with two feet of straw; by Christmas, the heads of the cauliflower were matured and white.
It is a common practice to pick green tomatoes before frost and let them ripen. They will be more palatable if the vines are pulled up and hung on a nail so the plants can mature the fruit. Tomatoes ripened on the vines will have more flavor.
Seed-grown onions are best stored by braiding the tops together when dry and hanging them on a nail in a dry place.
Set-grown onions do not keep well. They should be dried in the sun and stored in the attic.
Store Only Mature Vegetables
Most of the crops that we grow will store much better if they are well-matured. They should not be harvested until there is a danger of frost killing the tops.
The frost, if light, will not hurt turnips, rutabagas, carrots, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.
Tomatoes, pepper, and eggplant should be harvested before frost and spread out on shelves in the basement or the vines of the tomato hung up on the wall.
Squash should be harvested and piled in the sun for several weeks before placing it on shelves in the basement or other storage buildings.
Only squash that has a hard shell should be placed in storage. The soft ones (those you can dent with your thumbnail) should be disposed of without storage.
Handle Vegetables Like Eggs
Vegetables that have soil on them when dug or harvested should be washed in clear water before being stored. Also, anything put in storage must be handled as eggs are handled.
Much of the decay in storage comes from the diseases which gain a foothold in the bruised places. Anything that has a bruise or blemish should be left in the sun for a few days until the bruise dries.
In considering the storage of any vegetable, I would seriously consider the availability of fresh vegetables and their cost compared to the cost of storing surplus. Fresh vegetables usually taste better than stored vegetables.
The cost of providing storage space is an item that must be considered, except where vegetables cannot be obtained in off-season months.
And if it is necessary to provide storage at a considerable cost, I would seriously consider the purchase of deep freeze equipment.
44659 by V. A. Tiedjens