A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 what does everyone do with their fruit?

do you eat it on the spot? do you can it? freeze it? sell it? what do you do with your fruits and vegies?


personaly i am a wine maker..... but i was curious what the masses did

Hi Wizzard,
I don't grow too many fruits, but the one's we do grow, don't last long!!! So we just eat them...

I have wild red and black raspberries, wild elderberries, one wild apple tree and wild black berries, wild thimbleberries *purple flowering raspberry* and wild and cultivated strawberries....
I haven't ever boughten a plant from a place/nursery *cept the cultivated strawberries*
We live in the country, and I grew up eatin' my way around our house in the summer time....I could always tell what time of summertime it was, by the fruit that was out!

I do have a girlfriend, that used to make wine..

I would looooooooove to grow a grape arbor someday, I've been askin' my husband/father~in~law to build me one, *the neighbors acrossed the street have a very small one, but I think it's great!!!

Can you tell us a bit more about your grape growing and wine making????

Weezie

P/S Welcome to The Garden Helper's Forum by the way, we are very glad you found us!!!
We've got lot's to do here, so don't forget to peak around to all the other sections here!!!
Jump right on in!!

I usually eat my tomatoes but I only have a few plants so it's easy to consume all my fruit. However, I know people at work who bring in their fruits and veggies and share them with co-workers.

things to do with your harvest:

take to an old folks home

can/freeze what is not used immediately

take to a doctor's (or any other) office when you go, for the staff

share with the neighbors

dry/dehydrate for keeping

give extras to the local food pantry

give extras to a church for their "needy" family baskets (especially good at this time of year when churches are preparing the holiday baskets)

trade with others who have a different harvest

make soup etc and freeze for winter

make fruit syrup and freeze for winter

and that is just the tip of the iceberg. i have done all of the above. and sold some too.

"take to a doctor's (or any other) office when you go, for the staff"

Thats very nice, thankyou.

glad you liked that. my daughter works at a doctor's office and they get fruit and veggies once in a while.

We always get a glut of apples in the autumn so we press them for their wonderful juice. Add a little yeast and leave to ferment in containers with airlocks and you get a delightful alcoholic cider after about three months - be careful though as it can be real strong!

dbb,
Have you ever made apple cider vinegar???
Just curious??

We're making some right now, gotta wait alot longer though before we can use it though!!!

Weezie

How about your local public library?! The staff in some I've worked in have been too exhausted with Summer Reading Club activities to do much gardening when they got home. What a treat when patrons brought us their extras!

And if you have too many seedlings, talk to the librarian about starting a plant exchange.

Ann1

I can and freeze mine, what doesn't get eaten first. I made a lot of salsa, pepper sauce this year. Put up Jalapeno poppers, eggplant, and green slice tomatoes in the freezer for this winter. Nothing like green fried tomatoes when there out of season. I can my tomatoes and I make a lot of jelly, so I freeze my blueberries, mayhaw, wild plums, and huckleberries, blackberries, I usually juice the ones I am using for making jelly and put the juice in the freezer til I have the more time. What I don't grow I go the the orchard and pic what I need and freeze. My peas, squash and such gets blanched an in the freezer as well. When pecans make they go to the freezer as well. Now that its almost Christmas some folks will get some homemade goodies. Dang if my freezer was to go out, I guess I'd starve. lol.

We have a large vege garden and a number of fruit trees.

We eat fresh, freeze, dry, preserve and give away.

Not sure if we actually make any monetary savings when you take into account all the costs (water etc) but it tastes so much better when you pick it from your own garden.

We picked some figs this morning, unfortunately they didn't make it into the house. Yummy.

Cheers,

Trot