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Welcome to an exciting journey in living closer to the earth.

I've lived off-grid for the past 9 years in the forested mountains of central Vermont, USA. On the years when my partner and I have focused on our gardens, we've been able to generate plenty of fresh produce during our few warm months. However, we always end up with more than we can eat, especially as the summer progresses and more food is produced each week. Since we have limited power (just solar electricity when it's sunny and firewood during the cold 2/3s of the year), we weren't really able to take advantage of canning. Instead, we have largely made use of three techniques: drying, lacto-fermenting, and root cellaring.

We have a hanging solar dryer which works well for herbs and light things in the summer, but most of the time it is too wet or cold for this to work well. Instead, we like to use our electric dehydrator for preserving all kinds of things. Of course, you can dry sliced fruit, berries, herbs, beans, and so on, but you can also puree fruit and dehydrate it to make fruit jerky or make pasta sauces, chilis, and so on and dehydrate them to create big sheets of dried sauces. We break these up and store them in ziploc bags or mason jars. Later, you can just reconstitute them with warm water and make a quick meal.

Lacto-fermentation is pretty simple once you get your mason jars, salt, and food scale all set up. Start with something simple like sauerkraut. Then be a little more adventurous and make kimchi. Once you've got the hang of these staples, try fermenting cucumbers and sliced beets (in separate jars, of course). These are fantastic on a veggie burger or in a falafel wrap. You can really preserve all kinds of produce this way. We've even stored whole tomatoes with garlic cloves in jars of salt water for months and then strained them out, rinsed them off, and made a somewhat tangy pasta sauce.

Finally, root cellaring (as has already been mentioned by some other folks) is nature's refrigerator. Even if you just have access to a small patch of yard, you can dig a hole deep enough to contain a barrel (or at least a crate or ice chest). Make sure you put it somewhere without much sun if possible and cover it over with something insulating. The earth's temperature (once you get down a few feet from the surface) will stay much cooler than the air temperature above and can be used to extend the life of a number of fruits and veggies like carrots, potatoes, beets, turnips, radishes, apples, pears, and even your brassicas like cabbage, broccoli, and kale.

Have fun and good luck!

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~commence2897 wrote:

thank you for the lengthy amounts of information. i'll be picking through this post in particular like bits of food between my teeth for a while now.

fermentation is something i'm surprised i hadn't considered, considering its ability to increase the potent taste of ginger.

unfortunately i lack practically any space. there's more than enough to go around - yet it's carefully coordinated by the home owner, which makes trying to grow a sustainable supply of food difficult.

i've learned from reading that storing things in oil is a good way to preserve food too; have you any experience with this? apparently you follow the steps you take to pickle something, then add a dash of the vinegar solution to the foodstuff jar before filling the rest with oil.

either way - thank you for suggesting some good first steps, your off-grid like sounds idyllic!