Veggies: Freeze 'em or can 'em?

[brandi]

WWYD?

We're going to have a garden and I want to be able to put up as much of it as I can. We'll have some extra freezer space and a lot of pantry space.

Should I freeze our veggies or can them? And if I were to freeze, what equipment should I have?

[RiverRock]

It might depend on the quantities that you are harvesting at any given time. Usually when I do canning it is because I have bought boxes full of whatever I want to process. When I am just picking a bowl full of ripe tomatoes I would roast them, puree and then freeze them in portions for when I need tomatoe sauce. I prefer frozen peas to canned. I do can tomatoes every two years, but I buy them when they are in season. Same with peaches. Plums and pears I can because I have access to trees that bear much fruit. Apples I peel, slice and freeze because my family prefers apple sauce made "fresh" instead of canned. A lot will come down to preference. Ohh, you are wondering about veggies, not fruit. Which veggies are you thinking of?

[Sundance]

NAK

I prefer veggies frozen. I blanch them (you can google blanching times for each veggie), then pat them dry and put them in freezer bags. Freeze them flat, then stack them.
Like Jessica, I like my fruit canned, usually in a sweet syrup (totally not natural, I know, but SOOO good!)

HTH

[brandi]

Tomatos (probably will can)
potatos
green beens
butter beans
carrots
okra
peppers (jalopeno, and bell)
corn (I think)
peas
onion
garlic
pumpkins (ill probably make into pie filling and freeze)
squash

I think thats it

I like the taste of frozen better, but I wonder which will hold up better.

We are going to sell our watermelons and cantalope, although I will pickle some watermelon rinds. the only other fruit well have in our garden is pears and figs. Ill be buying berries and other fruits from local farmers.

The other fruits will be made into preserves jam and salsas. I may freeze some of them.

We don't have apples (I wish we did) They don't grow in Alabama

[andrea_r]

Unless you live in a really warm climate, I wouldn't freeze or can the root vegetables like potatoes & carrots. They keep in cool, dry and dark places.

Man I just read the "alabama" part. Coming from Eastern Canada, I do not like the texture of frozen potatoes. unless you've cooked them first. (we have frozen mashed potatoes, set with an ice cream scoop on a cookie sheet)

peppers you can just cut up & freeze, no need to blanch, same with onions.
Garlic we usually puree & put in a jar covered with olive oil & keep in the fridge.

Freezing takes way less equipment than canning. Don't have ziploc bags? Use plastic containers, like from ice cream.

[ThreeKids]

green beens
Do these however you prefer them now. I prefer canned. My dh would prefer blanched and frozen. They have very different textures depending how you do them. However, they keep for a very long time when canned so I would lean toward canning because then you won't be fishing around bags of frozen beans for years if you have a huge crop. A bonus for freezing is if you have some coming in every few days, you can do more of a continuous operation since you don't have to keep your pressure cooker out and wait for a full load.

butter beans
-good texture for canned.

carrots
-I don't like the canned texture much. I don't know how they are frozen. They're cheap enough to get year round, though. Just out of experience, if you have another source, carrots aren't worth the intensive thinning you have to do to get a good crop.

okra
-This has a delicate texture that's easy to screw up. Experiment with a frozen batch, thaw, and eat to see how it turns out.

peppers (jalopeno, and bell)
Jalopeno - canned
Bell - definitely frozen. You can even get away with a month or so in an unblanched state.

corn (I think)
Sweet corn does EXCELLENT blanched and frozen, but takes a lot of space. Creamed corn is space-saving, but I'm not sure if that would do well frozen.

peas
For shelled, kike green beans, it depends on your texture preferences. Their a lot of work either way.
For in edible pods, definitely frozen.

onion
garlic
potatos
Dry and store, mostly. Onions can be frozen, but I can't stand their canned texture (except those little cocktail onions, but I only have store bought experience to share with cocktail onions). I use canned garlic from the store. I would be careful about garlic (and, to some extent, onions) in the freezer due to the smells they can transfer.
If you freeze potatoes, go ahead and partially prepare them because they probably won't do well in there raw. I never liked canned potatoes. You have to overcook them to can them, then cook them again.

pumpkins (ill probably make into pie filling and freeze)
squash
You're freezing plan sounds good. These are hard (but possible) to can because they don't disperse the heat well without watering them down a lot.

These things are from my experience with a lot of canned goods. Right now, I only can the things I get the most benefit from. Tomato juice and apple sauce are the best bang for the amount of work involved for those fruits. I make fruit juices and can them, then open the cans later in the year to make jelly. That way, I have more cans available since jelly uses more jars than just the juice and I can make the jelly in the winter when not much else is going on.