Preserving the harvest
Too many beans? Keep them for later
Every garden has that week where everything comes on at once. Canning, pickling, jams, freezing and drying all turn a glut into food for the lean months, but they are not equal. Some keep longer, some are easier, and some crops only suit one of them. Tell us what you have and we will show you the tested ways to keep it, best first.
Tested recipes only. If there is no tested way, we say so.
Start with the crop
Find the best way to keep it
Type a crop and we list every tested way to keep it. The way that keeps longest comes first, and when two keep as long as each other, the easier one wins.
Pineapple
Best first. Ranked by how long it keeps, then by how easy it is.
- 1
Jams, jellies and marmalades
Keeps: Best quality within a year once processed in a canner. Refrigerator spreads keep about a month in the fridge.
Takes some care: A boiling water canner, and the sugar and pectin the recipe says.
Tested recipes for Pineapple:
Open the jams, jellies and marmalades recipes - 2
Freezing
Keeps: 8 to 12 months at minus 18°C or colder. After that it is still safe, just lower in quality.
Easiest: Most vegetables only need a quick blanch, then into the freezer.
Tested recipes for Pineapple:
Open the freezing recipes
Start with the method
Or start with what you are happy to do
Tick the ones you are happy to do and we show the crops that suit them and are ready to pick in your climate zone this month. Members get their own zone straight away, visitors pop in a postcode. Want the whole list instead? Tick “Show every crop”.
The five ways
Five ways to keep a harvest
Each way has its own tested recipe library. Open a card to search the recipes for that method.
Pressure canning
The only safe way to can low acid vegetables like beans, corn, carrots and pumpkin. Shelf stable, no freezer needed.
Keeps: Best quality within a year, stored somewhere cool and dark (10 to 21°C).
Needs the most care. Needs a pressure canner and the exact tested process for your altitude.
Tested ways for 35 crops
Open the pressure canning recipesPickling
Vinegar does the work, so a boiling water canner is enough. Cucumbers, beans, beetroot and chutneys.
Keeps: Best quality within a year once processed in a boiling water canner and stored cool and dark.
Takes some care. A boiling water canner and vinegar of the tested strength. Never cut the vinegar.
Tested ways for 23 crops
Open the pickling recipesJams, jellies and marmalades
Fruit gluts into jams, jellies and marmalades, with a boiling water canner and the right sugar and pectin.
Keeps: Best quality within a year once processed in a canner. Refrigerator spreads keep about a month in the fridge.
Takes some care. A boiling water canner, and the sugar and pectin the recipe says.
Tested ways for 20 crops
Open the jams, jellies and marmalades recipesFreezing
The easiest by far. Most vegetables only need a quick blanch, then into the freezer.
Keeps: 8 to 12 months at minus 18°C or colder. After that it is still safe, just lower in quality.
Easiest. Most vegetables only need a quick blanch, then into the freezer.
Tested ways for 72 crops
Open the freezing recipesDrying
Herbs, fruit, tomatoes and chillies, in a dehydrator or the sun. Light to store and great for snacks.
Keeps: 4 months to a year in a cool, dry, dark spot. Dried fruit keeps about a year at 16°C and 6 months at 27°C, and vegetables about half as long as fruit.
Easy. A dehydrator makes it simple. Sun drying needs reliably hot, dry weather.
Tested ways for 18 crops
Open the drying recipes
Before you start
How we keep this safe
- Tested recipes only. Every recipe here comes from published home preserving guidelines. We do not invent preserving recipes, because a guess in a jar can make you sick.
- Keeping times are for best quality. They are a guide, not a guarantee, and only hold when the recipe is followed to the letter, the jars sealed and the storage is cool, dark and dry.
- Australian units. mL jars, kilograms, millimetres, kPa and degrees Celsius. The conversion is ours, so pressures also show the original psi.
- Your canner’s manual wins. If anything here ever differs from the manual for your own canner or dehydrator, go with the manual.
- When in doubt, throw it out. A bulging lid, a broken seal, a smell or mould means the bin, not a taste test.