Abundance of Vegetables

[KimmyMarkks]

What do you do with you excess veggies? Sometimes I find I have so many vegetables all at the same time. I try to give them away but sometimes there are so many? How do you preserve them? Some of the ways I do is make salsa or sauce from my tomatoes. Pickle my peppers and eggplant.
What other ways do you?

 

[marlingardener]

Broccoli, green beans, thin slices of bell peppers, peas, corn--blanch and freeze.
Tomatoes--make marinara sauce to freeze, can whole or cut up, can juice.
Onions, if we just have too many, dice and freeze without blanching.
Potatoes, just keep in a cool dark place.
Anything we can't preserve, or have just too much of, we take to the local food pantry for them to distribute to those who can't garden, but really appreciate fresh vegetables (even squash!).

 

[Chuck]

Freeze, dry and can

 

[CanadianLori]

Share

 

[KimmyMarkks]

Broccoli, green beans, thin slices of bell peppers, peas, corn--blanch and freeze.
Tomatoes--make marinara sauce to freeze, can whole or cut up, can juice.
Onions, if we just have too many, dice and freeze without blanching.
Potatoes, just keep in a cool dark place.
Anything we can't preserve, or have just too much of, we take to the local food pantry for them to distribute to those who can't garden, but really appreciate fresh vegetables (even squash!).

The food lantry is a great i

Broccoli, green beans, thin slices of bell peppers, peas, corn--blanch and freeze.
Tomatoes--make marinara sauce to freeze, can whole or cut up, can juice.
Onions, if we just have too many, dice and freeze without blanching.
Potatoes, just keep in a cool dark place.
Anything we can't preserve, or have just too much of, we take to the local food pantry for them to distribute to those who can't garden, but really appreciate fresh vegetables (even squash!).

The food pantry is a great idea. I can't believe I didn't think of it. Or donating to the less fortunate is a great option too.

 

[marlingardener]

Kimmy, many people don't think of donating garden produce to food pantries because regulations/rules prevent some donations. We are fortunate in that our local pantry can take anything from "home" except baked goods, meat, and eggs, which means I can put in an extra garden just for the pantry!
Before you load up with extras, call or drop in to your local pantry and ask what they can take, and when they would like to have it. The produce has to be bagged and sometimes weighed, and different pantries have different distribution days. Our pantry distributes Monday through Thursday, so I take in produce early Thursday morning--by that day the pantry is pretty well emptied of everything except canned corn and green beans!
You'll have the joy of growing the vegetables, the pantry will have the joy of receiving fresh produce, and the clients will have the joy of having fresh vegetables for their families. Joy all around!

 

[rz3300]

Well I hope that you can get as much out of them as possible. I like the ideas of sharing and spreading the wealth, but of course you want to make sure you are set first. I would say freeze and dehydrate all you can, then get creative and try to work them into ever recipe that you can think of. You might be eating extra super healthy for a little bit, but of course that is never a bad thing. Thanks for sharing and good luck.

 

[katiegert]

What do you do with you excess veggies? Sometimes I find I have so many vegetables all at the same time. I try to give them away but sometimes there are so many? How do you preserve them? Some of the ways I do is make salsa or sauce from my tomatoes. Pickle my peppers and eggplant.
What other ways do you?

I usually freeze what I have room for. I prefer freezing because it keeps the nutrition better. Once a vegetable is cooked, part of the nutrition is cooked out of it. What doesn't fit in my freezer, I can. In the last few years I purchased a sauce maker for my Kitchenaid and that works wonders! Instead of having to cook my tomatoes slightly to skin them, I can put them in raw and it comes out as sauce. The skins and seeds are collected in a very dry paste material that shoots out the other end. There is no wasted juice or flesh and my sauce is seed free. I then fill my jars and seal them. It's so much easier this way. I don't know how I ever got along without it.

 

[Corzhens]

Our vegetables are calculated, meaning we plant only what we can consume. There never was a time that we had excess vegetables. But what we usually have in excess are the harvest of fruits. With the mangoes, we make pickles out of the green mangoes so we harvest them before they turn bright yellow. But with the other fruits like banana, we have to give away to neighbors. Usually our banana harvest is at least 10 clusters with each cluster having 20 fruits. We cannot consume those 200 bananas even for a week, huh.

 

[digger]

We planted several eggplants because there are just so many dishes that we can do with them. Our eggplants, however, turned out to be so prolific that we always end up with excess veggies. What we do is give them to my siblings and to my neighbors. In turn, our neighbors share some of their produce with us. Fair exchange, I would say.

 

[Alexandra]

Typically I love canning or pickling. I am new to both of these, but find it is a really good way to prevent waste. My personal favorite way to get rid of excess veggies is to donate them. I have several local food pantries that accept home grown fresh produce. I also have a facebook page in my area called "pay it forward" and I post on this site as well. If your area does not have one of these sites, I suggest creating your own, and inviting other gardeners or people who are constantly getting rid of unwanted items. Another thing many people do in my area is reserve a stand at the local farmer's market. They usually make a bigger profit than the expense of the stand, and they donate any leftover veggies. Hope this helps!

 

[remnant]

Gardeners face periods of glut especially after a rainy season when prices are low. I can take advantage of this by drying them in the sun or a dessicator to preserve them for use during periods of scarcity or sell them for a fortune. This is happening in my area with stinging nettle being preserved by drying and then being turned into powder.