Kody Hanner
On no! My garden is frozen; is it savable?
Ok, we have all been there. We have crazy lives; the weather takes an unplanned turn, and you’re out of town or sitting in a tree stand (that might be a story for another day). But basically, you blast outside in the morning to wilted frozen leaves and a potentially wasted harvest. I think this isn’t talked about a lot because everyone is afraid that their “Pinterest Unworthy” garden will make them less credible as a homesteader. I’m here to call you all out because you know you have done it!
This year has not been an exception for us.
We were on the road for several days, traveling to conferences, and our teenage son was charged with covering the garden with an old semi-tarp each evening until we could get home and harvest everything. The last night of our trip there were some major changes where our teen had to drive three hours to meet us and switch vehicles. We ended up not getting home until 3 in the morning, and it was too late. The garden was frozen solid! This isn’t my first rodeo; unfortunately, we jumped right in the next morning to harvest everything that we could. It has been a several-day process that we are still working on, but basically, it is not a total loss.
So, let me share with you the tips and tricks I have learned over the years when some or all of your garden gets caught in the cold.
Tips
Don’t try to harvest everything all at once. Once you bring everything indoors, it starts to thaw out and often turns into a wet mess. When vegetables freeze, the cells burst, allowing all the water to leak out. The trick is this is going to happen when you freeze them anyway, but you won’t be able to process them the same way you normally would.
Be prepared to work quickly and in small batches. I don’t like coming into the house without a full bucket. So grab a variety of items so you aren’t trying to process all of one type at a time. Have some that need to freeze, some to dry, some for the root cellar, and work quickly to avoid items thawing completely.
Accept that some items are a loss for your kitchen but not for the homestead. I wish everything could survive, but that just isn’t the case. So embrace the big picture. If frozen produce can go into the compost or be fed to livestock, it’s not a total loss.
Think about how you might use the produce and preserve it as close to that form as possible. Because once produce is frozen and thawed, it doesn’t hold its form as well, so it can’t be used in some ways. For example, I would never eat these items in a salad. But they would all be great for soups, sautees, salsas, and stir-fries. For softer items, I freeze them whole with seeds and all. It is worth it to me to simply preserve them and chop them when I’m ready to use them. For harder items, like zucchini, I make fries or cut them into cubes for sauteeing.
Handling Different Varieties
Large or Sweet Peppers
All of these peppers I brought in are still frozen, rinsed in a cold water bath (to avoid too much thawing), and dried well. I quickly put them into a large zip lock bag in a single layer and sucked the air out before sealing. I did not cut seeds out because I didn’t want to let them be damaged from thawing. Having them dry and in a single layer in the zip lock will allow me to pull what I need for cooking without having to thaw the whole bag. Ideally, I would have preferred to flash-freeze them before packaging, but all our freezers are full at the moment, so it would have taken way too long to process everything I needed to preserve.
Small or hot peppers
These peppers have such little flesh they still hold their form fairly well. I will be removing the seeds and dehydrating them. But their priority is a little lower on the list. I store them in jars with oxygen absorbers until I either rehydrate them in a meal or grind them in my spice grinder.
Tomatoes
I have not had much luck in saving some of my tomatoes. But I have frozen tomatoes whole and used them to make sauce later in the winter and was very happy with not only the results but the ease of peeling them after they had been frozen. So I would say, if you can, either freeze or process them as quickly as possible.
Herbs
Some of my herbs are going to make beautiful compost (they did not survive the freeze). However, my parsley, oregano, and some of my dill came through without an issue. With all the preserving I will be doing over the next few days, I know that I won’t be doing a lot of fresh herb cooking. With that, I am happy to dehydrate them all and store them.
Cauliflower, Brussels, and Broccoli
These are all cold-weather crops and do a little better than others in the cold. I only had one cauliflower left that hadn’t already been picked yet. The kids plan on eating that tonight with hotdogs because I am fasting this week.
Squash
All of my squash held up decent as well. This is where I used the parts I could, and the rest is going to chickens and pigs. The big ones were run through the french fry cutter; some were shredded for bread, and some were chopped into cubes for various recipes.
Root Crops
These are the best because they can stay in the ground until spring if you want. Our ground freezes really hard, and I am already struggling to chisel onions out. So, I will be pulling all of the onions and carrots that are left. The onions are being dried in my mud room on racks with a space heater. The carrots are packed in damp sand and headed to the root cellar.
Apples
These are actually looking pretty great. But they are all being boxed and put into the freezer until I have time to make cider and sauce.
Lost Causes
Let’s face it, there are going to be lost causes. Most of my green tomatoes are going to the compost, along with greens. Everything else is going to the chickens and pigs. See those as sustaining your homestead.
I really plan not to let this happen again next year. In fact, I am changing my annual travel plans to avoid wasting much of what I spent a whole year growing. I hope this helps you to save some of your garden, and I would love to hear the ways you saved your garden!
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