Life's Bounty

My Lifestyle Blog

  • Home
  • Travel
    • General
      • Armchair Inspiration
      • Travel Tips
    • Africa & Middle East
      • Morocco
      • Dubai
      • Egypt
      • Jordan
    • Asia
      • Borneo
      • China
      • Hong Kong
      • India
      • Nepal & Bhutan
        • Bhutan
        • Nepal
      • Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia
        • Cambodia
        • Laos
        • Thailand
        • Vietnam
    • Australasia & Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Vanuatu
    • Europe
      • Denmark
      • England
      • Greenland
      • Iceland
      • Russia, Belarus and the Baltic States
      • Spain & Portugal
    • Latin America
      • Ecuador & Galapagos
      • Mexico, Guatemala & Belize
      • Peru
    • North America
      • Canada
  • Garden
    • General
    • Maintenance
    • Plants
  • Kitchen
    • Recipes
    • Drinks
    • Equipment
    • Preserving Methods
  • Craftroom
    • Bath & Beauty
    • Cards
    • Featured Artists
    • Jewellery
    • Other crafts
    • Powertex
  • Gift Ideas
  • About Me

Freezing Frenzy

July 10, 2014 By sue Leave a Comment

When I first had a veggie garden, I grew summer salad vegetables and it was ‘survival of the fittest’.  They had to cope with just the occasional watering and long periods of total neglect while we were away at the beach over summer.  The freezer was simply a place where one kept a large supply of meat, bread, pies, ice cream and other essential supplies for husbands and teenage boys.

P1040164As the household shrunk and the gardening expanded, the freezer took on a whole new importance in my life.  I discovered that applying compost and regular watering made a massive difference to the productivity of the veggie garden.  I grew more things and in turn they produced much larger crops so I had to start managing a surplus.  Initially this was quite simple.  I have a wonderful guide to freezing and preserving that was put out by the local newspaper (‘centuries’ ago as you can tell by the style of the woman on the cover and the $1.50 price tag).

Basically you can freeze just about anything.  Whenever I have something that I don’t know what do with and wonder if I can freeze it, sure enough I can.  Not just the obvious meat, fruit  and veggies but also eggs, milk, cheese, cakes, biscuits, bread, leftovers….  So freeze I did! The summer garden bounty was frozen to give a good supply for cooking over the winter.

But then I decided to see whether I could grow some winter vegetables as well – the garden is quite shaded in winter so I had assumed that there just wouldn’t be enough sunlight for anything to grow well.  Well, it seems that they need a lot less sunlight than I had imagined and in fact they thrived.  And because I could, I did. I kept trying all sorts of different veggies until eventually the winter veggie garden was as packed as it was in summer.  And I kept freezing the surplus.

A whole new problem started to emerge: I wasn’t managing to use what I had frozen the previous season and I was beginning to run out of freezer space.  Reducing what was being grown in the first place might have been a sensible option but I was on a roll, so I had to think about how else I could preserve the garden bounty.  And so it all began …

Several of my friends have been talking recently about the need to get a bigger freezer and I was sympathizing with their plight.  But then I discovered that they all had small 2 shelf freezers as part of their refrigerator.  How on earth could they possibly be coping???  I have a 2/3 size fridge and freezer standing side by side – and the freezer is full to over-flowing.  I have so much jammed in there that every time I open the door several bags of frozen goodies come tumbling out.  Apparently freezers operate much more effectively if they are packed full rather than with lots of airspace! (I think I might be pushing that to the limit).

P1040162 P1040163

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Kitchen, Preserving Methods

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Life’s Bounty is about all the things I enjoy experiencing, creating, and sharing. Join me as I travel in search of new experiences; coax more produce from my backyard in Auckland, New Zealand and preserve the harvested bounty; and try my hand at making anything from cider to jewellery to cards to gift packs of soap.
Adventure Tours Australia
Peregrine Adventures AU

Connect with me

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Sign up for weekly updates

Categories

Tags

Apple Arctic Armchair Inspiration Aubergine Australia Banana Bath and Beauty Berries Bhutan Blueberries Broad Beans Card Techniques Cheese-making China Chutney and Relish Courgette Drinks Edible Flowers Eggplant Feijoas Figs Galapagos Gift Ideas Ginger Greenland Guatemala Herbs Iceland Jams Jellies and Marmalades Jewellery Techniques Lemon Lime Mexico Nepal Preserving Recipe Recipes Russia & Baltic States Sculpture Strawberries Tomato Travel Travel Tips Vegetables Zucchini

Copyright © 2022 Sue from Life's Bounty · Log in

Posting....
 

Loading Comments...