And what are we going to do with it all?

It occurred to me yesterday that fresh veg doesn't "keep" all by itself - it's not like I'm growing potato chips or saltine crackers or cans of anything out in the garden.  Each item has a sort of window of usefulness, and if we don't do something (like consumption or storage) with it during that window, it will end up as compost (that is, assuming I resurrect the compost bin).  So I started doing a little planning.

All told, we have the following edible stuff growing around the yard somewhere:

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Onions
• Potatoes
• Dried Beans
• Garlic
• Cucumbers
• Cantaloupe
• Pumpkins
• Shallots
• Snap Peas
• Regular Peas
• Green Beans (and purple green beans)
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Grapes
• Rhubarb
• Herbs

And in general, we've under-utilized our garden produce in years past.  For example, the rhubarb has been there for about 6 years now; it takes over an entire corner of our backyard garden, and we've never once eaten any of it.  Partly that has to do with the fact that it has never once turned red, so I assumed we were doing something wrong and it wasn't edible yet.  This morning, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found out that some rhubarb is just green and supposed to be that way, so I'm going to be brave and cook some.  If I never post here again, you'll know what happened.

Anyway, I'd like to avoid wasting much of what we're growing, if I can, so I'm looking into ways to preserve and store this stuff.  And finding out lots of useful information.  Like, I could have been freezing all the basil, mint, and tarragon that is taking over the back yard, instead of letting it die back every winter.  Or, I could invest about $70 in a food dehydrator and dry herbs as well as tomatoes.  But I probably won't.  I can count the number of times I've cooked with dried tomatoes on my thumbs; it will be much more useful if we peel-and-freeze them in various forms.

However, if the corn does actually produce more food than we can keep up with, I will probably buy one of those corn-cob razors that remove kernels easily - standing a cob on end and trying to slice them off with a knife just looks to me like a subtle but effective way to perform self-amputation.

The truly interesting storage challenges are the onions, garlic, shallots, and potatoes.  All of them need a cool, dry place to hang out over the winter - and the potatoes also need it to be dark.  I'd say that the back screen porch is a candidate for most of them - but we'll need some sort of light-blocking bin for the potatoes (if there are any).

Nearly everything else can be frozen, or simply cannot be stored.  I'm fairly certain that the lettuce is an "eat it or waste it" proposition, as are the cantaloupes.  And I can't quite see myself making pickles, so we will have to eat the cukes, too.  Julia Child's books include recipes for cooked cucumbers and cooked lettuce; I doubt they could be altered to accommodate frozen ones, always assuming that I could find anyone to eat either dish (my brother was once asked on a Biology test to define life, and responded, "Anything the French will eat", but cooked lettuce?  Cooked cucumbers?  Blecch!)

Anyway, harvest time, except for the lettuce and spinach, is a while out, so it's all just planning for now.  I guess by fall we'll all know a lot more about it.