Beuning - Modern Rustic: Canning, Pickling and Dehydrating: A Guide to Food Preservation: Includes Canning, Pickling, Dehydrating and How to Start a Root Cellar

The homesteading movement today has a diverse range of people practicing their own brand or philosophy of living off the land. Some people turn towards animal husbandry, getting their milk and meat from cattle, goats or pigs. Other homesteaders might use wild game trapping and hunting for their core protein. Many turn to gardens and orchards for the kinds of fruits and vegetables you simply cant get at the grocery store.

Regardless of a homesteaders chosen lifestyle there still remains the core philosophy of living life by the work of your own two hands and making the most of what the forest, field and soil have to offer. Enjoying fresh fruits, vegetables, milk and meats during the peak season is a great benefit. Inevitably, each homesteader finds themselves in a situation where they are staring at more bounty than they can eat and they have to find the best way to preserve the harvest.

In this book well take a look at various preservation techniques for canning fruits and vegetables as well as meat. Well also look at the best methods for pickling, fermenting and dehydrating as well as setting up a root cellar.

Sourcing

Now I recognize that not everyone is living off the land for 100% of every calorie they put in their body or stock in the pantry. As such, each chapter will also include notes for sourcing the best of the best at the grocery store or through a CSA.

CSAs are a new trend in the American marketplace. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it is a great way for a homesteading specialist to augment their own pantry with foods that they might not specialize in themselves.

Different farms and ranches might put their own little tweaks on the CSA concept. Essentially the idea behind a CSA is that early in the season you invest a certain amount of money with the CSA to have a stake or share in the goods they produce.

Some CSAs specialize in a just a few things. For example a CSA near me specializes only in honey and bees wax products. A single share costs you $300 for the year and you get an assortment of candles and balms. Then in the fall you get a large stash of rendered and filtered raw honey. I know there are some farmers and orchard keepers that they deal with that have silver tongued deals worked out where they pay a little extra to have the hives placed in their fields to help improve pollination and yield of their own crops.

This is just one example of a CSA specialist.

Many CSAs specialize in a handful of different goods. There is a charity CSA in my area that offers goats milk products for 10 months out of the year, as well as farm fresh chicken eggs. Then in the fall you can choose between a few select cuts of pork or a large amount of fresh smoked sausage. On good years they even offer fresh, in-season sweet corn.

This is an example of what youll find with many CSAs.

There are however a few CSAs out there which were once large scale operations or family farms that have turned away from specializing in one particular set of goods and instead offer a wide range of products throughout the season.

This type of CSA used to be very rare but with all the current blow back against GMO (genetically modified organism) products and the rise in popularity of organic vegetables and pasture raised animals you are starting to see them more and more.

In my area there is a charity organization just getting started in a CSA organization like this. Their plan is to offer asparagus and greens in the spring, snow peas and strawberries in early summer. Then after the 4 th of July they intend to offer young red potatoes, pearl onions and blueberries. In August they plan to offer tomatoes and fresh sweet corn. Then, theyll finish out the year with butternut squash and apples.

Along the course of the calendar they even plan to offer fresh herbs, flowers and an array of baked goods. They plan to have multiple packages where you can choose to get a small amount of goods delivered each week or get one large delivery each month that you can put up as you see fit.

They are about to break ground as I write this, so I cant completely attest to their success yet. Still, when you talk to the chairman he has big dreams and an eye towards one day raising pasture fed and free range animals.

Finding a CSA or two that you can be a member of is a great opportunity to augment your own operation with goods and products that you might not specialize in yourself. There are several resources on the internet that can help you search for and connect with local CSAs. Some states also produce annual guidebooks and magazines through university extension offices that can get you pointed in the right direction.