Freezing Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

More fruits and vegetables have been produced for home use this year than for any previous year for some time, and methods of preserving this food are needed. Canning is, of course, always a good method, but since the homemaker may not be able to obtain tin and rubber for containers, she must seek other ways to save her surplus garden products. The sharp freezing and storage of foods is one of the new and popular methods of preserving fruits and vegetables. Locker plants operating in South Dakota offer freezing service and many of them butcher and package meat. A few also prepare vegetables and fruits for freezing. Freshly packed fruits and vegetables should be placed in the quick-freeze room at the refrigerator locker as quickly as possible after harvesting. For best results, both fruits and vegetables should be picked, packed, and frozen in one day, preferably from garden to locker in five hours. It is well to keep a record of the number and kinds of foods frozen and the dates they are put in the locker, for green beans, wax beans, corn on the cob, on some varieties of rhubarb lose their pliability six months or more after they are frozen