by Donna Kallner

Home gardens pay off in produce to enjoy in season, produce to put by for winter, and produce to share with neighbors.(Photo by Ray Shrewsberry / Unsplash)

For many rural families, including mine, this does not feel like a year to be cavalier about what we have put by for winter. Grocery prices have not gone down. Availability feels uncertain. I can feed my household better for less than the cost of the “cheap” processed and prepared foods that have become the norm for many families over the past 40 years. But that takes some effort. And the growing season is short here at 45 degrees north.

So we went into it with slightly more ambitious plans than in years past — especially those years when I was on the road a lot for work and to care for aging parents. This effort has paid off in produce to enjoy in season, produce to put by for winter, and produce to share with neighbors. But there comes a point where a plan threatens to go off the rails. That’s how freezer boxes turned into my household’s version of a Seinfeldepisode: What makes a food box-worthy?

The saga began early this season when my homegrown tomatoes were suffering from blossom end rot. Pretty sure I forgot to bury the fish carcasses my husband freezes for the garden when he’s cleaning a mess of fish. It happens, no biggie. And it’s a simple matter to cut out the bad parts of a tomato. But with that much waste, it takes longer for a garden to produce enough to start canning.

So I sampled a simple preservation method recommended by several friends. Instead of canning big batches of quart jars, I roasted cored but unpeeled tomatoes in smaller batches, blasted them with a stick blender, and had sauce to freeze in minutes. No schlepping of canner and jars from the basement. Clean-up couldn’t be simpler. And the taste and texture of the sauce are sublime. 

I had always heard that leaving seeds and peels in tomato sauce made it bitter. Perhaps that’s true of varieties other than those I have planted. Or maybe I have just reached a point where some bitterness in my tomato sauce feels right for the times in which we live.

In any case, this method makes putting up tomatoes just one more simple kitchen chore every few days, easily dovetailed into other tasks. I have adopted it with the zeal of an aging gardener who repents years of doing things the hard way.

Here’s the problem: My mental household management spreadsheet did not account for using our stash of BPA-free pint freezer boxes for tomato sauce. With fall at hand, I suddenly realized we were unprepared to put up applesauce. 

This is not smooth, uniform 4-H applesauce run through a food mill the way my mother made it. It’s cored and quartered apples cooked just long enough to soften, whirled briefly in the food processor with a touch of local maple syrup, and frozen. It’s chunky spoonfuls with all the flavor and nutrition of the flesh and the skins of the fruit that keep the doctor away. I make it from blemished organic apples grown and sold at a ridiculously fair price just a few miles from home. A few spoonfuls in a bowl with homemade yogurt and granola prepares me for just about anything a day may bring – and that’s saying something these days. It’s just not the same canned as it is frozen. So I hustled to order in more freezer boxes.

In May, my preferred made-in-USA freezer boxes cost 15 bucks for a pack of 10. In September, a 5-pack is $18. I grumbled about the price increase, but ordered some anyway to set 15 freezer boxes aside for applesauce. It won’t be enough. I will have to freeze the rest in straight-sided wide-mouth pint jars, which I have on hand. They don’t stack as well in the freezer as the boxes, and I have to be careful not to drop jars. But I can make it work. 

Meanwhile, my garden is still producing tomatoes, and I’m too stubborn to buy more freezer boxes. So it’s back to canning tomatoes. Which means peeling tomatoes, if, like me, you were raised to follow university extension service canning recommendations as if they are holy writ. 

But the cucumbers can die on the vine now. I finished a batch of my grandmother’s recipe for 14-day sweet pickles in mid-August. With those and bread-and-butter pickles, we should be good for the year. We don’t put pickles on the table every single day like many farm families do. But given the choice between a pickle and a bottle of Gatorade to replenish electrolytes, I choose homemade pickles. 

We also made time in August to forage elderberries, which grow wild nearby. I froze some of the berries and made lots of an immune-boosting elixir that combines the berries with raw local honey, ginger, cinnamon, and brandy. I used a full case of quart canning jars for elixir this year: That’s far more than a two-person household should need, but I share with neighbors and loved ones. And I had brandy given to me by my friend Myra, who cleaned out her late parents’ liquor cabinet. Gotta love our rural community, where people act like you’re doing them a favor by taking second-hand booze.

In the past two years, Bill and I have had four serious viral respiratory infections — Covid, RSV, and Influenza A, which really kicked our butts last January. I felt so rotten then that we went straight to the pharmacy and bought the over-the-counter remedy recommended by the nurse practitioner to relieve symptoms while the virus ran its course. That stuff was $15 a bottle on sale. Before it ran out, we did the math to estimate how much would be needed for two people taking the maximum dose for the next week. Even the neighbor who went to town to pick up more for us commented on how expensive it was. And the comfort it provided for the Godzilla gurgles in my chest was mostly theoretical. 

In late August, when we got Covid for the second time, I managed symptoms just as well with homemade teas and tinctures made earlier from stuff that grows in our own yard, including white pine needles, yarrow, mullein leaves, plantain, elder blossoms, willow bark, and cough syrup made from cedar leaves, honey, and lemon. I can pronounce all of the ingredients in our home remedies, and don’t have to worry about supply chain issues making them unavailable when we need them. You can buy a lot of raw local honey for what we spent on OTC medicine last winter.

I’m not too worried about the price of eggs this winter, but that’s entirely thanks to the generosity of neighbors who provide us with eggs from their hens. When eggs are so plentiful in summer that it’s hard to use enough, I freeze some and also make noodles from my other grandmother’s recipe. They go great in chicken soup made from the birds another neighbor raises that we help to butcher. Maybe in a city you can order chicken soup to be delivered to your door when you’re feeling poorly. Out here, it comes from neighbors or what you have on hand in the pantry and freezer.

I hear a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about what the future holds. I’m feeling it too. Putting things by for winter helps me claim some control over how my household will weather what might be a very hard season ahead. Staying connected to neighbors is important, too, if we are to preserve healthy rural communities where our political differences don’t outweigh every other connection we hold dear.

And I very much want to stay healthy. The Midterms are just around the corner, and I intend to be fit and able to do my part to ensure fair elections. I may not like the choices many of my rural neighbors make at the polls. But I plan to be there to make sure everyvote counts.

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Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.

This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com

Elmira Telegram has changed only the title to add some context.

This article reminds me of my Cousin in Canada ! This woman is in a wheelchair most times because of her back but just refuses to stop putting away enough to feed an army lol ! Her husband and son in law have built out their whole backyard with raised ( 24” high ) beds that would make Joe Lample , sp, proud . Anyway it was a good read and makes me want to start on construction of new beds … now !