Tully Ag

Fall is the best time of year to harvest your crops. Most crops are ripe and ready to harvest and you need to get them harvested before the coming winter kills them. There are many ways to harvest and store your crops so that you can use them over the winter.

Root crops like potatoes, carrots, rutabagas, turnips and onions can be placed in a cold area and then used as needed. The cold area should not freeze your crops or they will be ruined. You can use a cold corner of your basement for stored root crops.

Some root crops should be pickled like beets. Beets keep better in a cool place.

Beans can be frozen, dried or canned. They are better frozen because they maintain more of their fresh, sweet flavor when they are frozen. Beans will store for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. If your fridge is broken, Toronto Refrigeration services should be checked out.

Corn can be harvested and then stored by canning, freezing or drying. Canned corn will last a long time when stored in a cool place. Freezing corn keeps the corn sweet and tasty. Drying corn can be somewhat difficult and the end product does not taste as good as frozen.

Peas can be canned, frozen or dried. Peas are a very versatile crop that can be stored many ways to keep them tasty and nutritious over the winter months.

Pumpkins and other squash crops can be placed in a cold corner of the basement to store them. Pumpkins and squash will last for months in the right temperature. The right temperature is cold but not freezing. Once a pumpkin or squash freezes it will get mushy and soft and start to mold.

Apples can also be stored in cold storage. You can put apples in a cold corner of the basement and they will last for months. Some varieties of apples store better then other varieties of apples. The mushier the apple is the less likely it can be stored in cold storage. You can also can apples, and dry apples to store them over the winter.

Other fruits like pears, peaches and plums are not as hardy as apples are. They need to be dried or canned to store over the winter. They will not last long in cold storage.

Tomatoes need to be canned, frozen or dried to store in the winter. You can make tomatoes into a sauce and can them or you can place them in zip lock bag and freeze them.