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Before I sit down and write out seed orders, I take a trip downstairs to do a Cold Room inventory. There is no point in taking up space planting a wide row of beets, if I still have 5 dozen jars of them waiting to be eaten. So, yesterday I spent half an hour down in the Cold Room, writing down everything we had canned and stored away.
Here’s my Cold Room Inventory:
Chicken Broth – 38 quarts
Tomato Sauce – 46 pints, 4 quarts
Beets – 32 pints
Pizza Sauce – 8 half pints, 3 pints
Applesauce – 3 quarts
Beef Stew – 21 pints
Pickled Beets – 25 pints
Sauerkraut – 13 pints
Salsa – 24 pints
Pickled Garlic Scapes – 7 pints
Canned fruit – (Pears & Cherries) – 10 jars
Taking an inventory is a good idea before you get too carried away with planting in the garden. From spending the time to count and note everything, I now have a good idea of what to plant and what not to plant.
You can see Green Beans didn’t make the list above. That’s because we ate them all! So, this year, I am going to have to try to get a lot of beans planted, harvested and then canned.
From looking at the list, we may not go to Lilloet for our annual tomato picking and saucing. We’ll see – it depends on how many more jars we use up. We both really like tomato sauce, so maybe we will need to put more jars by.
It seems to me that we need to get more apples this Fall, to make more sauce. I also slice them up and store them in the freezer/ We make pies and crisp over the Winter. We have our own apple trees, but I think we will need far more than we can harvest from our two trees. For beets, I may just put in one row and can up the harvest to give us a few more jars than the 32 we already have.
How has your Cold Room fared over the Winter? Do you still have a good amount of food there or are you going to have to refill your shelves this year?
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Patty S. says
Hiya Annie!! Inventory is a good thing, I agree. What I’m most interested in is the location of your Lillooet tomato source – care to share? We are thinking of packing up our smoker and the food dehydrator and heading south for a bit of a foodie vacay, and tomatoes are always high on our list. Hope you’re keeping well, and thanks! Patty S.
Annie says
Hi Patty, good to hear from you. I’ll email you the tomato source. I think your idea of a food vacation sounds wonderful. You’ll go home with lots of great food preserved!
Lynda says
Ha! I’m doing the same thing this weekend. I have plenty of green beans…not enough corn! This year we’ve planted several acres of corn so I’ll be ok…but I need to get ahold of my market gardener friend and make sure he plants a few extra beans for me, since my son isn’t growing green beans this year. I’m out of onions and garlic, too. Still have about 50 pounds of storage potatoes and 20 quarts of canned. Used up all of the beef stock. I love taking an inventory…makes me feel safe!
Annie says
Hi Lynda, taking the inventory is a great way of finding out what to plant, what to leave out, how much…all those good things. Our potatoes have gone to seed unfortunately, so some got planted and some are being fed off to the chickens. Glad to hear you have still got a supply of food on hand!
Amanda says
I can never eat enough applesauce! Or watermelon… Can you grow those up north?
Annie says
Hi Amanda, we can sure grow apples trees here. Watermelons would have to be in a hoop house or greenhouse I would think. Cool nights here almost all the time.
We love applesauce too – too bad the deer came and did a number on our 2 trees.
Kari says
I like your inventory list! Our storage has done fairly well. We still have enough canned corn until it comes ripe again. I make corn relish and pickled beets as they are favorites on the raft trips, so most of those are stocked up. We are nearing the end of the green beans, water packed beets, and there is no more tomato sauce or pizza sauce. There are about a dozen and a half of tomatoes in quart jars still on the shelf. We have applesauce quickly disappearing especially since we’ve discovered applesauce popsicles! There are other odds and ends left, but we are looking forward to a new crop of freshness.
What do you can for dog food?
Annie says
Applesauce popsicles? Sounds wonderful, just put the sauce in the tray? Or do you add something else? I’m glad you’ve got some food still put by, tomato sauce always seems to disappear quickly. Lucky thing we bought so many pounds of tomatoes in 2010 or I’d be running stuck by now for sure.
We use all kinds of meat trimmings for the dog food, when we slaughter the pigs or meat birds. Even spent laying hens get used as dog food. Venison trimmings too, when we are lucky enough to have some.
Kari says
Yes, just the applesauce in the pop tray! This year I used some pumpkin pie spice in a few of the batches of applesauce. That is tasty too!
Annie says
Sounds delicious, thanks Kari.
Teena in Toronto says
Do you want my address so you can send me some 🙂
Annie says
Well Teena, sorry to say but I am in hoarding mode now 🙂