When our kids were young, Y2K was what people were preparing for and those of us who were grinding grains to make our own bread learned that something to prevent bugs hatching in grains was to put in dried bay leaves in each bucket before sealing. I’ve been storing wheat this way for years and never seen a bug in my grain.
When it comes to bulk grains I always buy them in cold months so I just pour the grains directly into buckets and leave them outside in freezing temperatures for 3 days. That way I can do a big order all at once and not have to fuss with squeezing 25lb back in the chest freezer. 😁
For empty jars, I learned from a friend to fill them up with water for emergency water needs instead of letting them collect dust or critters. Great for washing laundry or filling up toilets to be flushed, etc.
You two are professionals in homesteading and should have ur own tv show! I am also a impressed of you both for having such a strong, long lasting marriage. You guys are the definition of a true classic American marriage! I love it!
To help track things in an easy way what I do is put the month and yr on every item. If I home can or buy from the store. Does not matter what it is everything gets a date. With a sharpie I write the date on the upper right hand corner of the item. That way the date is always in the same location when I need to look at it. I also have a secondary location for items in case the date can't go on the upper right hand corner. Then when I open something like a bottle of oil I cross out the purchase date and write the open date. Then when the bottle is empty I can easily tell how long that lasted. That tells me how many bottles I can store before they go bad. It also tells me how many I need to last me a yr. Bags of sugar I will tear off a part of the bag or put a paper in the bottom of the canister with the open date Or the date I filled the canister. I do that with shampoo TP (for that I stuff a part of the bag in the 2nd to the last roll or I will cut the packaging down smaller and leave a couple of rolls in the original packaging.) I do this with everything that is packaged and I can write on or put a tag on. No more tracking in a separate note book or on the calendar. I would always loose those or forget to stop what I was doing to go write it down. Now that I have the date on the packaging and I know how long it lasted I can then figure out how much space I need to store for the amount that will last me a certain time frame. Example I want enough sugar to last 1 yr. At first I was thinking that would take up so much room with buckets and buckets full. After writing the date on the bag I found that we only used 4, 5 pound bags of sugar a yr. So only 20 pounds. Those 4 bags fit perfectly front to back on my shelf. In one row. That is not counting what I have in a canister in the kitchen. When I go shopping all I have to do is look for the empty spots on the shelves. Buy what I need to fill that slot. When full I automatically know I have my goal of 1 yr stored. Doing it this way for me saves tons of time, makes for easy rotation, I know when to stock up on sales so it saves a lot of money. The biggest thing is I am not storing a ton of stuff I wont use within a yr. This also saves a huge amount of space. I found that I can very easily store a yrs worth of dish washing liquid & dish waster detergent under the kitchen sink. We don't use near what I thought we did. It just seemed that I was buying it all the time. But as daily life consumes time I was not accurate on the real time things lasted. For home canned foods I write the date and item on the lid When I take that lid off after washing it I put it in a small shoe box I keep in the kitchen or I use a basket I set on the window sill. ( when I had lables I had a basket on top of the fridge I could throw things into easily. All I have to do is count the lids at the end of the month and then I know how much I have used & of what. I do that with store canned things as well or I just rip the label off the can with the date on it. When I make my grocery list or planting list I just have to count the labels or lids to know how much I need to buy or replace what I used. You could do the same with box tops. (side note if you do that with chips cookies and such pop bottles put the lid in the basket then you can see how much of that stuff you are really eating that can be a big shocker)
When I had very little extra money and was a single mother I took enough money each month to buy one case of something we ate a lot of and I found lots of grocery stores give you a discount on case goods. Over time we had a good pantry and saved money! There are stores here where you can buy large amounts for less money. The 7th day Adventist and co-ops have bins of foods you can buy cheaply. A little at a time you can build up a nice pantry. Jars can be bought at thrift stores and yard sales. For storing dry goods I found that empty pasta jars work. they have a rubberized ring that sets on the jar rim so it seals out moisture and bugs.
I love your no-nonsense approach to practical homesteading. I listen to you each week and am blown away by your practicality and depth of knowledge. Thank you for using this approach to teach rather than fear-mongering. Thank you for sharing your journey 🙏🏻✌🏻
When I started, years ago, I’d buy a bucket with a gamma lid. Then I would go enough rice to fill that bucket. Next was same with bucket, then beans. I continued this until I could feed eight people for one year. I was also buying what ever I wanted to season the above with, plus salt. I did this within 4 months. Now I’m up to the whole buying bulk from ranchers and have a garden. Everything you advise is solid advice. Also start just buying wide mouth canning jars by the case every payday, even if you are not canning yet. They are hard to come by. Buy wide mouth pint and quart. Start with pint. I promise you will fill them and you always need more. Stay busy
Being a household of one in an apartment, I use the top freezer on my household refrigerator with those plastic see thru shoe boxes without the lids so I can stack the food up a little. Can get 6 boxes...three on top shelf and 3 underneath, labeled fruits, veggies, seafood, meats, cheese and miscellaneous (left overs), changing the contents as needed. The shelves on the door I use for ice cream, etc that will fit the space.
My parents are aging, and have a small chest freezer. It's becoming challenging for them to reach to the bottom and grip a milk crate, so I bought them long-handled canvas totes for freezer organization. Pricier than basic plastic milk crates, but given their infirmities, much more practical. Their continued independence and safety is worth the expense trade-off.
@@kimsnader8777, I use milk crates for the bottom layer, and reusable grocery bags for the next layers. A couple of our local grocery stores have give-aways or sales on them occasionally.
I remember when I was a teenager and young adult, my dad grew a couple of acres of potatoes every year. We live in the Deep South and after harvesting the potatoes he would store them on the dirt floor of a lean to behind his shed. After I married and had kids, I never had to buy potatoes, I would just go behind his shed and get what I needed.
Here’s a fun fact about “canning”. The word canning comes from canister not a tin can. So weather you jar it or place it in a tin can it’s still canning because it’s placing your food in canisters.
My husband and I absolutely LOVE watching your channel and learning the ways of homesteading. My one little idea would be to adding pictures so we can visually see what you mean when you are talking about certain things! Thank you for sharing your life and amazing tips, tricks, and ways with all of us.
I had the big chest freezer in Alaska and I had milk crates that I organized meat in that made it easy to get to what I needed. Has hamburger in a couple of them, sausage in a couple, steaks in one, roast in one. Kinda like that. With them stacked I could easily get you what was in the bottom by moving milk crates. That way stuff didn’t get lost or forgotten about.
I love to curl up for hours and hours and binge watch your videos,, with the classic fireplace on the tv ,hot chocolate,,, I’m in heaven ,, I’ve lived on a large homestead my entire life and I love to watch things you do ,that I wish I had done ,,,
I LOVE using the vacuum sealer with large mouth jars. We have cherry and apple orchards and the sealed jars allows us to get through years that the cold kills the crop so we still have pleanty of dried fruit for snacking these years.
Saw another blog on preserving water. She storms hers in 2 liter soda water under her bed. If they are very clean and laid on their side one can get a bunch under your beds. I thought that was a great idea.
I use the reusable fabric shopping bags to organize our deep freezer. I fill one with bags of peas or one item in the bag. These fit nice as rectangles as I lay ziplock bag flat and put all in the reusable. So it's easy to pull out a bag to find something 15 bags fit in our 12 square foot freezer. We freeze what we need and the next year is empty bags
that's a good idea! i'm looking to get a chest freezer because i've filled my upright. i had four drawers which were supposed to be sweets/bread/veg/meat but are just meat/meat/meat/meat!
Bbq came to mind immediately and cabbage. So many flavors and directions for a new twist on slaw...then my thoughts turned to nuts and meats...lol I am inspired to take a look and roll out of my kitchen rut. (& I need a day to rotate)! 🥴 These videos are reminiscent of family/friends dropping in for a cup of coffee when I was young. Appreciate your time everyone (and comments), nice community being built here...
mary CBS news jane The community where I grew up continue a group effort of making apple butter. It is a tradition that turned into an annual fund raiser every year. For those of us that moved away, we are really sad if a package doesn’t arrive by the holidays.
Charlotte Jerome bbq sauce recipe: 1/2 cup maple or apple syrup 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1/4 cup tomato paste 2 tsp chili powder 1 tsp chipotle chili powder 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic 1 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper Whisk all ingredients together in sauce pan and simmer on low for 5-7 minutes
The open shelving is really pretty. You do want to make sure food on those shelves are used quickly. It is mentioned in this video to store foods in a darkened area and in a place that is temperature stable. Kitchens temps can fluctuate a lot.
I like to use re-useable shopping bags to keep my meat separate in the freezer, it also makes it easier to pull a bag out look through its contents and put it back in than hanging my whole body over the edge to grab a pkg of rogue pork chops at the very bottom! LoL
Grace Reeves you could decline the in store bagging, just put it all back in the cart and bag it at your car. Seems a little fiddley but might be worth it.
For the empty jars I got a plastic rolling cart that I keep under my kitchen table to put the jars in as they become empty. As for dehydrated goods I use a brake bleeder to vacuum seal my jars of dried foods.
Just wanted to say, “Thank you!” . I have learned SO much from you both! You’re my favorite channel to watch and I have watched a lot of channels that are similar to yours. However, your way of doing is more to the way things were done during my childhood. Again, “Thank you!”
You both are adorable! Yes always rotate your food use the FIFO method...First In First Out this makes it easy to remember. Thanks for sharing important information as this. I'm baby stepping my way into canning, have only done jellies in water bath and am nervous on pressure canner but I'll face fear soon lol. Missouri Wrightchk
I organise things in my chest freezer using carrier bags so in all of my white carrier bags I have all of my packets of meat, in my green I have all of my vegetables and in my blue all of my fruit and then I have my bread in a a red one
Glass jars were often used initially. But they were difficult to seal and expensive to ship. They then went to "canisters" and shortened the word to "can". Hense the word canning. It originally was called "jarring" way back when.
We have 50 acres in another state and are just now starting to think about turning it into a homestead. It will be slow going as it's raw, overgrown land but one step at a time.
The plastic milk crates have worked well for us to organize the smaller cuts of meats in the deep freezer and the crates stack which allows for easy rotations too
I use the wire racks that hold 300 lbs per shelf. I buy 2 racks and make one with it so that there is nothing resting on top of jars. I can fit pints 5 dzn per shelf x 9 shelves= 45 dzn. quarts are 3 dzn per shelf x 8 shelves= 24 dzn and half gallon jars for storage I can fit 28 jars per shelf x 6 shelves= 168 jars (14 dzn). I like that system because if I need to adjust the shelving I can without any problems. I don't have a root cellar but would like one for usage. Thanks for other good ideas.
Ooh!! Fantastic idea! I hadn't thought of that. Just bought 2 more of those metal bakers type shelving units--could do that with them...or add shelves from them to my existing ones. Thanks!
I would really like to know more about storing green coffee beans? Do you roast coffee? Also with wheat does freezing kill off the bugs that are inherit with grains? Would love to see your actual bulk storage area. Thank you so much!
I organize my freezer food by separating them in reusable grocery bags. That way I can quickly lift a bag or two to get at the bags below. It works great for me.
Yep, that's what I do also. I typically have the bottom layer in milk crates, and then the next layer is in the reusable grocery bags. It works so very well!
I had about 2 years stashed for five people in a tiny little house 156 ft and you can't see any of it I'm so grateful the Lord put it on my heart years ago to start stashing I found that the buckets I got the waterproof buckets with the expensive lids and they take up more space if you have the space to stack them it's wonderful but I just got got the mylar bags 25 lb mylar bags and filled those that way I could stack numerous bags in the space it would take me to have one bucket so what you stash it in makes a huge difference I do have a lot of stuff canned but that takes up too much room also
This was amazing! The level of skills you've built and knowledge you have is truly admirable! It is such a journey and it is wonderful to have mentors like you both to learn from who are farther along in the process!
@42:00 you talk about labeling your buckets or jars. I recommend using painter's tape instead of clear cello or packing tape. It sticks well, but is easier to remove without residue.
Great ideas on storing on a tight space. Don't know if anyone's already mentioned it, but cheese can be stored long term by covering it in wax, theres some videos out there on it if ppl are interested.
I much prefer chest freezers for the reasons you stated. They’re also more cost effective to purchase. This house, I had to move to upright freezers because I didn’t have enough floor space for chest freezers…. I did buy fabric boxes to keep everything from falling out of the upright though….
Since our basement is damp, I placed my shelving in the coldest part of our house. It happens to be in the dining room. I hung room darkening drapes on them with magnetic hooks.
Thank you for all the great reminders and new info. I have watched a lot of prepper type videos and canning videos, which I have done for many years...but you two are down to earth and realistic.
What about growing your own coffee? when I worked in Kona Hawaii everyone picked their coffee beans and dried them on the front porch so it smelled wonderful every where you went.
I'm disabled so using a chest freezer is no longer a viable option for me but one of the things I used to do with a chest freezer is to use milk crates for the different types of meat now I have to use upright freezers and I've gone to the dollar store and bought little baskets that come up about 6 or 8 in and I can put my hamburger my sausage whatever I need up and down in there it also helps that I'm only feeding myself so I don't have 3 lb of hamburger at a time free meal but this really helps organize because the old stuff comes to the front the new stuff goes to the back
I saw a pantry tour wherethe lady grouped by food type within the years. I had never seen this before. I will use this method when I get my pantry room finished
I group that way. Fruit jars all on the same set of shelves. Canned tomato products all on another set of shelves. Baking items and seasonings on another set of shelves, beans, oils and condiments, etc.
I use good quality plastic bins designated for particular products and rotate the contents regularly. Creating a menu is also vital for good rotation of your products. Keeping an inventory of products in and out is also very helpful.
I save all metal cans, especially coffee cans with plastic lids. And anything glass. Lids for glass and cans can be made or some contrived method. Plastic containers can be made into cushions between glass items.
My husband and I are just now getting into canning and I love the idea of canning water! Especially when you have room for one or two more jars...now I know to fill up a couple of jars of water to fill the canner. I have a question, how much headspace? I'm assuming a quarter inch, but not sure!! Love your ideas on organizing the pantry!!! Y'all are very easy to visit with while you are sharing so much wonderful information!!!!! Keep up the GREAT work!!!!!
Love watching your videos. I started canning and dehydrating my food. I have been learning more recipes and learning how to grow and make things that I buy at the store like spaghetti sauce and I watched your video on how to make egg noodles so thank you for teaching us. God bless you and your family and p.s. we turned our third garage into our new pantry with no sun light
I would LOVE for you to do a food storage build. Unless you’ve already covered this, I’m new to canning my Grandma did it forever, I was little and didn’t retain much. ❤
Freeze bulk meats- I sort meat into baskets by type and as I put them into the freezer I do a layer of one of each thing. So you get a bit of everything in each layer, and not stuck with the yuckier cuts all at the end. HTH
Gathering ideas and tips because I am currently recovering from illness and am going through my entire pantry so it can be moved for an electrician to come add additional lines in the spring. I’d stored green beans, but am feeding them to my chickens over the winter as we aren’t eating them! I like green beans, but will do pints next time.
That is what I did I bought a large shelf off Amazon, and I save canning jar boxes, then when I empty the jars I put them back in the boxes and store back on that shelf. As I got comfortable canning, I started canning more. My total solution now is things go into caning pantry closet when I bottle it up. When I empty it goes into a cabinet in the kitchen. When that cabinet is full I fill a box and put it on the shelf in the garage. So I worked out a system over time that fit my working style. The big thing was as my comfort level grew I started canning more. I ended up with more jars and worked my way into the shelf in the garage for all my empty jars.
Jar-ing storage. Hit up your liquor store and use their empty boxes that STILL HAVE THE CARDBOARD SEPERATERS - I've moved a bit in my life - learned a couple hacks ;-) (Love you both, thank you for sharing your time and knowledge 🙂)
I keep all my boxes my jars came in & store the empty ones in a closet & under a bed. I also use these same boxes to store my full jars. It's easiest if the entire box is the same or like types of food. I cut the plastic even with the top of the box. This keeps any mess in the box instead of all over your shelves should a seal fail. We live in Florida. A couple of years ago we lost an entire freezer of food due to power outage from hurricane Irma. I now can up everything possible & use freezer for short term storage only. I do wish we had a basement or root cellar (very rare here) to be able to store fresh veggies through the winter. Your videos are always so informative. Thank you for sharing & God bless ❤
I'm starting to think like that about my freezer here in oz. We've been warned to expect outages this summer. Couple years ago we had an "accident " with someone turning off the spare freezer and losing that food was bad enough.
Always best to boil used jars real well. The lids may not seal as well, but my mom always poured a little melted paraffin wax to be sure it is sealed properly. We get it at Vons out here in Southern Cal. Thanks for your videos.
You are accomplishing what we are just beginning at. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! We just split a pig with another family and I'm going to render the fat soon (it's in the freezer right now). I'm excited you have a video on how to do it!
thank you very much guys. I agree with others, here in Australia we call it 'preserving' but mostly that is fruits and veggies, jams, pickles, sauces. Long term 'Canning' which comes from the metal canner we have to use has only just happened in Australia, thanks to you guys. Maybe we could refer to glass jar preserving? and Aluminum canning? But I think we all know what you mean.
I live in an upstairs place. A major concern is the excess weight of storing items. Therefore I tend to dehydrate a great deal as it weighs less than things with water in them. Heavier things like rice I limit. Paper goods, (things that won’t freeze) I store in the trunk of my car. 😆 Just trying to work with what I’ve got. Thanks for the good tips.
I also fill jars with water and use the lids and rings when I pressure can just to take up empty space and that way I always have canned water as well. It has been very handy
Two questions: With the below-ground valves you have, how deep do your pipes go? And also, what is the low-level heat source you use in your pump house through winter?
Its very interesting what you need to do on a farm in winter. Its great information. I live in a climate that barely gets cold let alone snowy winter. I think most people at the start of prepping goes through the 3 stages. 1. Is buy heaps of canned food, rice, things they dont always eat or like but get more then necessary. 2. Everything is more condensed. You know what you and your family like, the start of preserving yourself. Trying different methods. 3. Is more where you guys are. Living off the land, using more produce and having animal that feed the family that you have done yourselves. Maybe not completely self sufficient but as close as you can be....being in a community is great to share the many trades. Im still in stage 2😁. Great chat on food storage. I have a big insect issue. We cant get away without insecticides around our house. But im trying to have as little as possible directly on plants and such. Living in a tropical location right on the sea its very difficult to keep root veggies for long. Im now having to store some in the fridge when i buy in bulk. Anyway, thanks again.
In Australia we call it bottling although the younger generation are now calling it canning I guess because if the internet and now Ball jars are available here. We traditionally we use Fowler’s jars which is a different jar to Ball. The rubber ring is separate where as on the tattler lids the rubber seal is part of the lid. Fowlers also has a boiling unit which is a very large urn which we use instead of a pot in the stove too. Same principle.
In Australia I grew up calling it “bottling” or “preserving”. When I first heard the American term “canning” I literally thought that you were preserving food in cans at home.
I'm in Northern New England and Boiled Cider is a staple here. I bought my raw, unpasteurized apple cider at a local orchard. The cider should be unpasteurized with no preservatives because you're simmering it down and concentrating it. The only place you can legally buy unpasteurized apple cider is directly at an orchard. Or grown your own apples. By law cider sold in stores has to be pasturized. I simmer it down on the back of my woodstove. I use it on pancakes, on vanilla ice cream, in donut batter- cider donuts are the best! Put it in oatmeal, in BBQ sauce, etc. Maple syrup is pretty cheap here but boiled cider is even cheaper to make yourself. King Arthur flour is about a half hour from me and they sell it but it's very expensive through them. great video!
I haven't seen the lard cooking video. I remember doing that when I was a kid. My mom was a butcher at the local meat market and they would throw that stuff away so she got it for free.! I want to get a wood burning cook stove so I'm excited to see that video.
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When our kids were young, Y2K was what people were preparing for and those of us who were grinding grains to make our own bread learned that something to prevent bugs hatching in grains was to put in dried bay leaves in each bucket before sealing. I’ve been storing wheat this way for years and never seen a bug in my grain.
Canning water also gives you sterile water for wound washing good to add to your first aid kit
When it comes to bulk grains I always buy them in cold months so I just pour the grains directly into buckets and leave them outside in freezing temperatures for 3 days. That way I can do a big order all at once and not have to fuss with squeezing 25lb back in the chest freezer. 😁
Great idea for northern areas!
Thank you for sharing your great tip!
Great idea when space is an issue!!
Mind blown!
Great idea.
For empty jars, I learned from a friend to fill them up with water for emergency water needs instead of letting them collect dust or critters. Great for washing laundry or filling up toilets to be flushed, etc.
You two are professionals in homesteading and should have ur own tv show! I am also a impressed of you both for having such a strong, long lasting marriage. You guys are the definition of a true classic American marriage! I love it!
To help track things in an easy way what I do is put the month and yr on every item. If I home can or buy from the store. Does not matter what it is everything gets a date. With a sharpie I write the date on the upper right hand corner of the item. That way the date is always in the same location when I need to look at it. I also have a secondary location for items in case the date can't go on the upper right hand corner.
Then when I open something like a bottle of oil I cross out the purchase date and write the open date. Then when the bottle is empty I can easily tell how long that lasted. That tells me how many bottles I can store before they go bad. It also tells me how many I need to last me a yr. Bags of sugar I will tear off a part of the bag or put a paper in the bottom of the canister with the open date Or the date I filled the canister. I do that with shampoo TP (for that I stuff a part of the bag in the 2nd to the last roll or I will cut the packaging down smaller and leave a couple of rolls in the original packaging.) I do this with everything that is packaged and I can write on or put a tag on. No more tracking in a separate note book or on the calendar. I would always loose those or forget to stop what I was doing to go write it down.
Now that I have the date on the packaging and I know how long it lasted I can then figure out how much space I need to store for the amount that will last me a certain time frame. Example I want enough sugar to last 1 yr. At first I was thinking that would take up so much room with buckets and buckets full. After writing the date on the bag I found that we only used 4, 5 pound bags of sugar a yr. So only 20 pounds. Those 4 bags fit perfectly front to back on my shelf. In one row. That is not counting what I have in a canister in the kitchen. When I go shopping all I have to do is look for the empty spots on the shelves. Buy what I need to fill that slot. When full I automatically know I have my goal of 1 yr stored. Doing it this way for me saves tons of time, makes for easy rotation, I know when to stock up on sales so it saves a lot of money. The biggest thing is I am not storing a ton of stuff I wont use within a yr. This also saves a huge amount of space. I found that I can very easily store a yrs worth of dish washing liquid & dish waster detergent under the kitchen sink. We don't use near what I thought we did. It just seemed that I was buying it all the time. But as daily life consumes time I was not accurate on the real time things lasted.
For home canned foods I write the date and item on the lid When I take that lid off after washing it I put it in a small shoe box I keep in the kitchen or I use a basket I set on the window sill. ( when I had lables I had a basket on top of the fridge I could throw things into easily. All I have to do is count the lids at the end of the month and then I know how much I have used & of what. I do that with store canned things as well or I just rip the label off the can with the date on it. When I make my grocery list or planting list I just have to count the labels or lids to know how much I need to buy or replace what I used. You could do the same with box tops. (side note if you do that with chips cookies and such pop bottles put the lid in the basket then you can see how much of that stuff you are really eating that can be a big shocker)
Great tracking system.Thank You for sharing.
Such great ideas! I'll definitely start doing these things. Thanks!
I got to do that to on my cans write the date when I bought them
This is so smart! Thanks for explaining in detail.
Wow great ideas
When I had very little extra money and was a single mother I took enough money each month to buy one case of something we ate a lot of and I found lots of grocery stores give you a discount on case goods. Over time we had a good pantry and saved money! There are stores here where you can buy large amounts for less money. The 7th day Adventist and co-ops have bins of foods you can buy cheaply. A little at a time you can build up a nice pantry. Jars can be bought at thrift stores and yard sales. For storing dry goods I found that empty pasta jars work. they have a rubberized ring that sets on the jar rim so it seals out moisture and bugs.
I love your no-nonsense approach to practical homesteading. I listen to you each week and am blown away by your practicality and depth of knowledge. Thank you for using this approach to teach rather than fear-mongering. Thank you for sharing your journey 🙏🏻✌🏻
When I started, years ago, I’d buy a bucket with a gamma lid. Then I would go enough rice to fill that bucket. Next was same with bucket, then beans. I continued this until I could feed eight people for one year. I was also buying what ever I wanted to season the above with, plus salt. I did this within 4 months. Now I’m up to the whole buying bulk from ranchers and have a garden. Everything you advise is solid advice. Also start just buying wide mouth canning jars by the case every payday, even if you are not canning yet. They are hard to come by. Buy wide mouth pint and quart. Start with pint. I promise you will fill them and you always need more. Stay busy
I like to use milk crates to organize my freezers. It's easy to organize food by type and get to stuff on the bottom that way.
Being a household of one in an apartment, I use the top freezer on my household refrigerator with those plastic see thru shoe boxes without the lids so I can stack the food up a little. Can get 6 boxes...three on top shelf and 3 underneath, labeled fruits, veggies, seafood, meats, cheese and miscellaneous (left overs), changing the contents as needed. The shelves on the door I use for ice cream, etc that will fit the space.
My parents are aging, and have a small chest freezer. It's becoming challenging for them to reach to the bottom and grip a milk crate, so I bought them long-handled canvas totes for freezer organization. Pricier than basic plastic milk crates, but given their infirmities, much more practical. Their continued independence and safety is worth the expense trade-off.
@@kimsnader8777, I use milk crates for the bottom layer, and reusable grocery bags for the next layers. A couple of our local grocery stores have give-aways or sales on them occasionally.
I remember when I was a teenager and young adult, my dad grew a couple of acres of potatoes every year. We live in the Deep South and after harvesting the potatoes he would store them on the dirt floor of a lean to behind his shed. After I married and had kids, I never had to buy potatoes, I would just go behind his shed and get what I needed.
Here’s a fun fact about “canning”. The word canning comes from canister not a tin can. So weather you jar it or place it in a tin can it’s still canning because it’s placing your food in canisters.
I never knew that. I always had a problem with the word canninf like these guys did
My husband and I absolutely LOVE watching your channel and learning the ways of homesteading. My one little idea would be to adding pictures so we can visually see what you mean when you are talking about certain things! Thank you for sharing your life and amazing tips, tricks, and ways with all of us.
I had the big chest freezer in Alaska and I had milk crates that I organized meat in that made it easy to get to what I needed. Has hamburger in a couple of them, sausage in a couple, steaks in one, roast in one. Kinda like that. With them stacked I could easily get you what was in the bottom by moving milk crates. That way stuff didn’t get lost or forgotten about.
In Australia , we call canning "preserving " ... thank you for all your tips and hints ..
I love to curl up for hours and hours and binge watch your videos,, with the classic fireplace on the tv ,hot chocolate,,, I’m in heaven ,, I’ve lived on a large homestead my entire life and I love to watch things you do ,that I wish I had done ,,,
I LOVE using the vacuum sealer with large mouth jars. We have cherry and apple orchards and the sealed jars allows us to get through years that the cold kills the crop so we still have pleanty of dried fruit for snacking these years.
Saw another blog on preserving water. She storms hers in 2 liter soda water under her bed. If they are very clean and laid on their side one can get a bunch under your beds. I thought that was a great idea.
What does "storms" refer to? And do you add anything to water to make sure it stays safe?
@@margemoore6634 I think she meant stores the water not storms
I wouldn't store it long because plastics can leach into the water. Plastic bottles were never designed to be reused.
@@mermer58 I know she replaces it by watering her house plants and refilling.
I use the reusable fabric shopping bags to organize our deep freezer. I fill one with bags of peas or one item in the bag. These fit nice as rectangles as I lay ziplock bag flat and put all in the reusable. So it's easy to pull out a bag to find something 15 bags fit in our 12 square foot freezer. We freeze what we need and the next year is empty bags
that's a good idea! i'm looking to get a chest freezer because i've filled my upright. i had four drawers which were supposed to be sweets/bread/veg/meat but are just meat/meat/meat/meat!
We make apple syrup! We use it interchangeably with maple syrup. On top of waffles, pancakes, to make bbq sauce! You name it!
Bbq came to mind immediately and cabbage. So many flavors and directions for a new twist on slaw...then my thoughts turned to nuts and meats...lol I am inspired to take a look and roll out of my kitchen rut. (& I need a day to rotate)! 🥴
These videos are reminiscent of family/friends dropping in for a cup of coffee when I was young. Appreciate your time everyone (and comments), nice community being built here...
Have many apple trees. Big purchase next year? Cider press. Will make cider syrup. Sounds delicious. Thanks for the suggestion
mary CBS news jane
The community where I grew up continue a group effort of making apple butter. It is a tradition that turned into an annual fund raiser every year. For those of us that moved away, we are really sad if a package doesn’t arrive by the holidays.
Sounds wonderful... please share the recipe
Charlotte Jerome bbq sauce recipe:
1/2 cup maple or apple syrup
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Whisk all ingredients together in sauce pan and simmer on low for 5-7 minutes
I'm gonna copy your kitchen in my tiny house. I love the country feeling.
Me to I love it the jars showing and the tin behind there
The open shelving is really pretty. You do want to make sure food on those shelves are used quickly. It is mentioned in this video to store foods in a darkened area and in a place that is temperature stable. Kitchens temps can fluctuate a lot.
@@ln1273 true! In their case they probably go through the food we can see up there in a couple of weeks 😅. Their main storage is in another area.
I like to use re-useable shopping bags to keep my meat separate in the freezer, it also makes it easier to pull a bag out look through its contents and put it back in than hanging my whole body over the edge to grab a pkg of rogue pork chops at the very bottom! LoL
Our stores in CA don't allow you to bring in your reusable shopping bags (due to COVID) but they'll GLADLY sell you one for a quarter. 😡
Grace Reeves you could decline the in store bagging, just put it all back in the cart and bag it at your car. Seems a little fiddley but might be worth it.
@@hannanickell8950 That's what I do at Aldi. I find it much easier that way.
That is such a good idea!
For the empty jars I got a plastic rolling cart that I keep under my kitchen table to put the jars in as they become empty. As for dehydrated goods I use a brake bleeder to vacuum seal my jars of dried foods.
Just wanted to say, “Thank you!” . I have learned SO much from you both! You’re my favorite channel to watch and I have watched a lot of channels that are similar to yours. However, your way of doing is more to the way things were done during my childhood. Again, “Thank you!”
You both are adorable! Yes always rotate your food use the FIFO method...First In First Out this makes it easy to remember. Thanks for sharing important information as this. I'm baby stepping my way into canning, have only done jellies in water bath and am nervous on pressure canner but I'll face fear soon lol. Missouri Wrightchk
I organise things in my chest freezer using carrier bags so in all of my white carrier bags I have all of my packets of meat, in my green I have all of my vegetables and in my blue all of my fruit and then I have my bread in a a red one
I learned how to vacuum seal in my freeze dryer. Such a game changer.
Glass jars were often used initially. But they were difficult to seal and expensive to ship. They then went to "canisters" and shortened the word to "can". Hense the word canning. It originally was called "jarring" way back when.
We have 50 acres in another state and are just now starting to think about turning it into a homestead. It will be slow going as it's raw, overgrown land but one step at a time.
The plastic milk crates have worked well for us to organize the smaller cuts of meats in the deep freezer and the crates stack which allows for easy rotations too
I use the wire racks that hold 300 lbs per shelf. I buy 2 racks and make one with it so that there is nothing resting on top of jars. I can fit pints 5 dzn per shelf x 9 shelves= 45 dzn. quarts are 3 dzn per shelf x 8 shelves= 24 dzn and half gallon jars for storage I can fit 28 jars per shelf x 6 shelves= 168 jars (14 dzn). I like that system because if I need to adjust the shelving I can without any problems. I don't have a root cellar but would like one for usage. Thanks for other good ideas.
Ooh!! Fantastic idea! I hadn't thought of that. Just bought 2 more of those metal bakers type shelving units--could do that with them...or add shelves from them to my existing ones. Thanks!
I would really like to know more about storing green coffee beans? Do you roast coffee? Also with wheat does freezing kill off the bugs that are inherit with grains? Would love to see your actual bulk storage area. Thank you so much!
I organize my freezer food by separating them in reusable grocery bags. That way I can quickly lift a bag or two to get at the bags below. It works great for me.
Yep, that's what I do also. I typically have the bottom layer in milk crates, and then the next layer is in the reusable grocery bags. It works so very well!
I can water whenever I have an empty spot in my canner when I'm doing other processing.
I had about 2 years stashed for five people in a tiny little house 156 ft and you can't see any of it I'm so grateful the Lord put it on my heart years ago to start stashing I found that the buckets I got the waterproof buckets with the expensive lids and they take up more space if you have the space to stack them it's wonderful but I just got got the mylar bags 25 lb mylar bags and filled those that way I could stack numerous bags in the space it would take me to have one bucket so what you stash it in makes a huge difference I do have a lot of stuff canned but that takes up too much room also
That's so cool that y'all are going to do a food forest! I'm excited to see the progression of that!
I just love watching the two of you! I learns something every time I listen to your talks! God bless you both!
This was amazing! The level of skills you've built and knowledge you have is truly admirable! It is such a journey and it is wonderful to have mentors like you both to learn from who are farther along in the process!
@42:00 you talk about labeling your buckets or jars. I recommend using painter's tape instead of clear cello or packing tape. It sticks well, but is easier to remove without residue.
Great ideas on storing on a tight space. Don't know if anyone's already mentioned it, but cheese can be stored long term by covering it in wax, theres some videos out there on it if ppl are interested.
I love all your videos so much I’m watching all your old videos. 🙂
I much prefer chest freezers for the reasons you stated. They’re also more cost effective to purchase. This house, I had to move to upright freezers because I didn’t have enough floor space for chest freezers…. I did buy fabric boxes to keep everything from falling out of the upright though….
Since our basement is damp, I placed my shelving in the coldest part of our house. It happens to be in the dining room. I hung room darkening drapes on them with magnetic hooks.
thank you for bringing up the STORE WHAT YOU EAT, AND EAT WHAT YOU STORE!!! ALL to often that advice is not emphasized
Thank you guys...your information is spot on...I really appreciate all your hard work.....
Thank you for all the great reminders and new info. I have watched a lot of prepper type videos and canning videos, which I have done for many years...but you two are down to earth and realistic.
Y’all are a wealth of information. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. Keep the videos coming 😀
Awesome video! Would love if y’all would do a video on roasting your own coffee beans! 😊
Yes I agree!! I am a huge coffee lover and would love to know how to do this!!
Would love to know where people are buying their beans from.
What about growing your own coffee? when I worked in Kona Hawaii everyone picked their coffee beans and dried them on the front porch so it smelled wonderful every where you went.
I'm disabled so using a chest freezer is no longer a viable option for me but one of the things I used to do with a chest freezer is to use milk crates for the different types of meat now I have to use upright freezers and I've gone to the dollar store and bought little baskets that come up about 6 or 8 in and I can put my hamburger my sausage whatever I need up and down in there it also helps that I'm only feeding myself so I don't have 3 lb of hamburger at a time free meal but this really helps organize because the old stuff comes to the front the new stuff goes to the back
I saw a pantry tour wherethe lady grouped by food type within the years. I had never seen this before. I will use this method when I get my pantry room finished
I group that way. Fruit jars all on the same set of shelves. Canned tomato products all on another set of shelves. Baking items and seasonings on another set of shelves, beans, oils and condiments, etc.
I use good quality plastic bins designated for particular products and rotate the contents regularly. Creating a menu is also vital for good rotation of your products. Keeping an inventory of products in and out is also very helpful.
I love watching your channel!! Thank you for investing the time and sharing videos!! ♥
I put my empties back in box with food. Helps me keep track when I get low and need to can again and restock.
I save all metal cans, especially coffee cans with plastic lids. And anything glass. Lids for glass and cans can be made or some contrived method. Plastic containers can be made into cushions between glass items.
If you have floor to ceiling shelving the very top shelves would be ideal for storing empty jars
Milk crates are great for organizing food storage. Lots of good tips. And Pink loves your open shelves filled with the canned items!
You two are great,very simple and informational.thanks
Very helpful, encouraging and informative 👍
My husband and I are just now getting into canning and I love the idea of canning water! Especially when you have room for one or two more jars...now I know to fill up a couple of jars of water to fill the canner. I have a question, how much headspace? I'm assuming a quarter inch, but not sure!! Love your ideas on organizing the pantry!!! Y'all are very easy to visit with while you are sharing so much wonderful information!!!!! Keep up the GREAT work!!!!!
Love watching your family garden and get ready for winter! Thanks and it’s not as cold here in southern Ontario! Nancy from Canada
Love watching your videos. I started canning and dehydrating my food. I have been learning more recipes and learning how to grow and make things that I buy at the store like spaghetti sauce and I watched your video on how to make egg noodles so thank you for teaching us. God bless you and your family and p.s. we turned our third garage into our new pantry with no sun light
Boiled down apple juice turned into Apple butter bbq sauce. Smother on your own pasture raised pork ribs or chops is heaven on earth!!!
So glad I found you I am learning so much.
I would LOVE for you to do a food storage build. Unless you’ve already covered this, I’m new to canning my Grandma did it forever, I was little and didn’t retain much. ❤
Freeze bulk meats- I sort meat into baskets by type and as I put them into the freezer I do a layer of one of each thing. So you get a bit of everything in each layer, and not stuck with the yuckier cuts all at the end. HTH
Gathering ideas and tips because I am currently recovering from illness and am going through my entire pantry so it can be moved for an electrician to come add additional lines in the spring. I’d stored green beans, but am feeding them to my chickens over the winter as we aren’t eating them! I like green beans, but will do pints next time.
That is what I did I bought a large shelf off Amazon, and I save canning jar boxes, then when I empty the jars I put them back in the boxes and store back on that shelf. As I got comfortable canning, I started canning more. My total solution now is things go into caning pantry closet when I bottle it up. When I empty it goes into a cabinet in the kitchen. When that cabinet is full I fill a box and put it on the shelf in the garage. So I worked out a system over time that fit my working style. The big thing was as my comfort level grew I started canning more. I ended up with more jars and worked my way into the shelf in the garage for all my empty jars.
Jar-ing storage. Hit up your liquor store and use their empty boxes that STILL HAVE THE CARDBOARD SEPERATERS - I've moved a bit in my life - learned a couple hacks ;-)
(Love you both, thank you for sharing your time and knowledge 🙂)
I keep all my boxes my jars came in & store the empty ones in a closet & under a bed. I also use these same boxes to store my full jars. It's easiest if the entire box is the same or like types of food. I cut the plastic even with the top of the box. This keeps any mess in the box instead of all over your shelves should a seal fail. We live in Florida. A couple of years ago we lost an entire freezer of food due to power outage from hurricane Irma. I now can up everything possible & use freezer for short term storage only. I do wish we had a basement or root cellar (very rare here) to be able to store fresh veggies through the winter. Your videos are always so informative. Thank you for sharing & God bless ❤
I'm starting to think like that about my freezer here in oz. We've been warned to expect outages this summer. Couple years ago we had an "accident " with someone turning off the spare freezer and losing that food was bad enough.
Thank you for the canning water idea ! 💡 and using the jarring vs canning word is a better terminology.
Always best to boil used jars real well. The lids may not seal as well, but my mom always poured a little melted paraffin wax to be sure it is sealed properly. We get it at Vons out here in Southern Cal.
Thanks for your videos.
You are accomplishing what we are just beginning at. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! We just split a pig with another family and I'm going to render the fat soon (it's in the freezer right now). I'm excited you have a video on how to do it!
Food forest! I'm intrigued.
thank you very much guys. I agree with others, here in Australia we call it 'preserving' but mostly that is fruits and veggies, jams, pickles, sauces. Long term 'Canning' which comes from the metal canner we have to use has only just happened in Australia, thanks to you guys. Maybe we could refer to glass jar preserving? and Aluminum canning? But I think we all know what you mean.
I always love the chit chat parts
Great video! We do quite a few of these ideas already but we learned a few new ones that we need to implement. Thanks!
Minus 35 here tonight in Saskatchewan! I love your videos!
Really love your videos and family lots of love New Brunswick Canada
Fantastic video!!! Thank you!!
I live in an upstairs place. A major concern is the excess weight of storing items.
Therefore I tend to dehydrate a great deal as it weighs less than things with water in them. Heavier things like rice I limit. Paper goods, (things that won’t freeze) I store in the trunk of my car. 😆 Just trying to work with what I’ve got.
Thanks for the good tips.
I also fill jars with water and use the lids and rings when I pressure can just to take up empty space and that way I always have canned water as well. It has been very handy
My latest “honey alternative” is corn cob jelly😋
Really enjoy you folks. Because I am so new at this, would have enjoyed example pictures as you went along. Thank you for putting this out there!
Two questions: With the below-ground valves you have, how deep do your pipes go? And also, what is the low-level heat source you use in your pump house through winter?
Just found your videos, so far very impressed! You 2 are amazing and I just loved how the girls helped on the lard rendering video. Bless you all! 🙏
Think of food storage as buying insurance. If it goes bad it's no bigger deal than not collecting on a policy. It's still a good thing!
EXACTLY !!! you can still put it in a compost pile so at least there is always that
Its very interesting what you need to do on a farm in winter. Its great information. I live in a climate that barely gets cold let alone snowy winter.
I think most people at the start of prepping goes through the 3 stages. 1. Is buy heaps of canned food, rice, things they dont always eat or like but get more then necessary. 2. Everything is more condensed. You know what you and your family like, the start of preserving yourself. Trying different methods. 3. Is more where you guys are. Living off the land, using more produce and having animal that feed the family that you have done yourselves. Maybe not completely self sufficient but as close as you can be....being in a community is great to share the many trades. Im still in stage 2😁.
Great chat on food storage. I have a big insect issue. We cant get away without insecticides around our house. But im trying to have as little as possible directly on plants and such. Living in a tropical location right on the sea its very difficult to keep root veggies for long. Im now having to store some in the fridge when i buy in bulk. Anyway, thanks again.
Great video, very informative and helpful. 😊
In Australia we call it bottling although the younger generation are now calling it canning I guess because if the internet and now Ball jars are available here. We traditionally we use Fowler’s jars which is a different jar to Ball. The rubber ring is separate where as on the tattler lids the rubber seal is part of the lid. Fowlers also has a boiling unit which is a very large urn which we use instead of a pot in the stove too. Same principle.
Thank you this was helpful !
In Australia I grew up calling it “bottling” or “preserving”. When I first heard the American term “canning” I literally thought that you were preserving food in cans at home.
In New Zealand we call it bottling love your wonderful video's thank you 😊❣️
Was wondering if you ever do videos that shows your structures like the barn?
I'm in Northern New England and Boiled Cider is a staple here. I bought my raw, unpasteurized apple cider at a local orchard. The cider should be unpasteurized with no preservatives because you're simmering it down and concentrating it. The only place you can legally buy unpasteurized apple cider is directly at an orchard. Or grown your own apples. By law cider sold in stores has to be pasturized. I simmer it down on the back of my woodstove. I use it on pancakes, on vanilla ice cream, in donut batter- cider donuts are the best! Put it in oatmeal, in BBQ sauce, etc. Maple syrup is pretty cheap here but boiled cider is even cheaper to make yourself. King Arthur flour is about a half hour from me and they sell it but it's very expensive through them. great video!
Great information
I haven't seen the lard cooking video. I remember doing that when I was a kid. My mom was a butcher at the local meat market and they would throw that stuff away so she got it for free.! I want to get a wood burning cook stove so I'm excited to see that video.
I love your kitchen!
Thank you for sharing.
Great, informative video. Thanks
I had a friend who dug a hole in the barn and put an old chest type freezer in the hole and used it for a root cellar.