There seems to be a myth or mentality out there that if you don’t grow the vegetable or fruit yourself, then you can’t preserve it. Guess what? You don’t have to grow all the food you preserve. Food preservation with farm seconds is one of the most affordable ways to fill up your pantry and freezer with healthy food all year long.
We don’t and can’t grow absolutely everything. For example, we don’t have an orchard yet. It’s a long-term goal, but beyond our mostly wild blackberry patch, we grow none of our own fruit. However, we do preserve our fair share of fruit every year. Besides freezing berries and making a few jams, our family has an annual applesauce canning day every October using fruit from a nearby orchard.
So who cares if you live in a city apartment or are still stuck in the suburbs. You, too, can put food by whether you have a garden or not! Those pretty farmhouse pantries full of colorful mason jars could be yours when you preserve food with farm seconds.
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Get to know your local farmers
Did you know we waste 30-40% of the food in the United States? Much of the waste happens along the supply chain to the grocery store. Not only does cutting out all the middle men save more food from the landfill, it often costs much less! Liability concerns prevent your neighborhood grocery store’s produce department from selling the rejects or “expired” produce. So the best way to preserve more food affordably is to go right to the source–your local farmer.
Like I mentioned above, we have a huge applesauce canning day every year. The way we get all those apples is we’ve gotten to know a local orchardist. Farmer Nathan visits with him at the market over the course of the summer, asks about his crops, what apples are doing well this year, what the challenges have been, what their growing practices are, and generally building a relationship. Come fall, the combined family puts in a very large order of apples.
If you’re concerned you might be undercutting your local farmers asking for seconds at the market, take it from our market farming family. We don’t want to take all this produce back home from the market! A good portion of it won’t last to sell later and it would be wasted. We don’t want to compost something we could have sold to you!
Ask for a bulk discount
We all know buying in bulk is a great way to save money on things like toilet paper and dry goods. But it is also a great way to buy fresh produce as well. It costs money and time to bag or box up fruits and vegetables into packaging. Oftentimes local farmers are more than willing to pass along the savings to those willing to buy in a large enough quantity.
Take a look at any recipes you want to can and how many batches of jam/salsa/sauce/pickles you want to preserve to determine how many pounds you need to purchase. Same goes if you are wanting to freeze the raw vegetables or fruits; calculate how many bags you want (or have space for!) in your freezer. Then, email your favorite local farms or ask them when making the rounds at the farmer’s market if they offer wholesale pricing or if they sell in bulk.
Wandering the farmer’s market towards the end of the day is a great time to see what excess fruits and veggies didn’t sell that week. Like I said before, we farmers would rather not take home a whole bunch of perfectly good veggies that are just going to rot in our compost pile! This is the time to snag a deal or negotiate a bulk discount on produce you can take off their hands right then and there. Oftentimes you’re doing the farmers a favor by asking!
Don’t be afraid of seconds
A lot of food is wasted merely because it isn’t pretty. The tomatoes split, the rain left some soft spots on the strawberries, bugs nibbled the leaves to shreds. This is the stuff farmers know won’t sell at the farmer’s market or appeal to chefs at local restaurants, but most of it is perfectly edible. A lot of perfectly edible food in the United States is wasted due to mere cosmetics.
Don’t let a few blemishes scare you from affordable healthy food that is perfect for food preservation. While it takes a bit more work, it is possible to cut off the section of the peach or corn ear the worm ate and enjoy the rest. Actually finding a bug is a great way to know if your produce was indeed grown without pesticides!
Many farmers are happy to sell grade B produce at a discounted price as it would otherwise end up in the compost pile. So ask around at the farmer’s market and see who has “seconds” available. Keep in mind that seconds are not sorted for quality control. So there will be plenty leftover for your own compost pile or a friend’s chicken flock.
Farm Seconds Safety
While the farmer’s market rejects are a great way to affordably source veggies for preservation, not everything can be salvaged. There is a point where things are too far gone. Use common sense to determine if it is just a blemish or it is decomposed beyond edibility. If in doubt, be sure to check out the recommended food preservation guidelines from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
For example, if you get a crate of tomato seconds, you will find some of the split ones had sat out in the sun a bit too long. They will smell like sour vinegar. Toss those. Or if you see signs of mold, toss those as well. Even though there seems like a lot of waste sometimes, just remember that you’re saving so much from the landfill. Plus, it’s better than a sick tummy!
Let’s do this!
Food preservation with farm seconds is a fantastic way to get started on your journey to homesteading skills and allow you to stock up a pantry with farm fresh goodness no matter where you live or how much land you have to garden. Hope this inspires you to get canning, freezing, and dehydrating this year! Check out the following links and posts for tips and tools for food preservation:
