Taking Stock of My Stores

Since the busy canning season has drawn to a close with the coming of the first frost I thought it would be a good time to tally up what I had stored for the winter.  I am trying to see how long my stored food will last me and it's helpful to know how much I started with.  In canned items I have quite a variety of things with a few more to be added as time allows this winter.

Jellies and jams:

There are 12 half pints of plum jam, 13 half pints of apricot jam, 3 half pints of peach jam 24 quarter pints of pepper jelly (not pictured here), 1 half pint of blackberry jam (a gift from the neighbor), and one quarter pint of cherry preserves (a gift from a co worker).

Canned fruit:

My canned fruit collection consists of 10 pints of pears, 13 pints of peaches, 4 pints of apricot halves, 8 pints of apple pie filling, and 11 pints of applesauce.  

Salsa:

I only canned red salsa this year as I didn't get any tomatillos for salsa verde this year.  I ended up with a grand total of 35 pints.  I think this is more than enough for me for the year but I may end up making one more batch just to use up more peppers.  I have so many that I don't know what to do with all of them!

Pickles:

My stores of pickles are very well rounded due to my love of dill pickles.  I canned over fifty quarts of them this year though I have already given some away.  I still had a few jars left over from last year so I plan on eating those first.  Pictured here is my entire stash of 62 quarts of dill pickles.  That ought to get me through to the next growing season I hope!

Not pictured are 18 quarts of chicken stock and 6 pints of last years tomato sauce.  I will be adding to the tomato sauce stores over the next few weeks as I find time to turn my frozen tomatoes into sauce.  I also have 6 quart jars of dried zucchini, 2 quarts of dried apricots, and 12 bottles of cherry wine.  My wine stash will be rounded out in a couple more months when my 7 gallons of plum wine are ready for bottling.

Other things that I have in "storage" are crops like my potatoes, carrots and parsnips which are still in the ground.  These crops I will harvest as I need them over the winter.  They keep better in the ground and with the mild winters we have here I should be able to harvest them periodically as I need them.

I also finished curing my onions and shallots so they were all trimmed up and added to my pantry shelves

I ended up with a little over 4 lbs of shallots, 9 lbs of red onions, and nearly 32 lbs of yellow onions.  I find this quite impressive knowing that I used several pounds to make my salsa and I have been eating the "use first" ones for many weeks now.  If I had to guess, I would bet that my whole onion harvest was nearly 60 lbs.

The freezer tally was a little more difficult to get as I had to dig everything out to see what I had.  At this point in the season I have about 30 quarts of green beans, 32 quarts of broccoli, 5 gallon bags stuffed full with peppers and 4 1/2 gallon bags holding tomatoes for sauce making.  I also found pork bones that need to be made into stock and many more meals of pork and chicken from my butchering adventures last winter.

I guess you could say that I am well stocked up for winter as far as my pantry goes.  It really hits home how much time I put into my garden when I see the stacks of produce that I have stored up over the course of the growing season.  I am very happy with this year's tally.  I think this is probably one of my most successful years yet and I know that there is still more to learn that will help make my future gardens even better.