We take stock regularly of the pantry. I LOVE doing it. Putting my hands to the work of seeing what we have eaten, what’s left, what needs to be eaten up (most canned goods can last up to two years but I use my discretion mostly ) and what I need to ration to make last -these are some of my favorite parts of the job of putting up food.
A few years ago I went to my grandmother’s root cellar to get some jars my family had saved for me. I found a jar with food still in it from 1963! And no, I didn’t eat it:)
We have a main storage area with big racks covered in blackout drapes sourced second hand, and Velcro’d which houses our jars. Over a century ago when this house was built on this rocky island, they were only able to dig out a crawl space, so no root cellar for me . We rotate down to this built in storage in my kitchen you see here. I never let what I don’t have hold me back.
We have main cold storage in the barn for potatoes, turnips, carrots and beets, squash and then in the kitchen we have a “use first” area, which also stores our garlic and onions, sweet potatoes and some squash too. We keep a small bar fridge in the kitchen for apples and overflow milk, and orange juice (we don’t grow oranges-YET lol- but just buy it when it’s on sale in bulk and freeze and thaw.)
The most asked question I get is :
“Why do you store your jars without rings ? “
The jars are processed with the rings on but are stored with them off. This prevents us not catching false seals, where the seals may have loosened or failed but the rings hold them down anyway, creating a false seal which can let oxygen in and cause bacteria to grow.
We can over 1000 jars of food over the course of a year. Why?
🫙Health
🫙Cost
🫙Knowing what we are eating
🫙Self sufficiency
🫙Connection to the land
🫙Basic skills
There is always something needing “putting up.”
1 Timothy 6:8 “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”
Love Jenn xx