Food Preservation Planner ~ Free Printable

"Alexandra often said that if her mother were cast upon a desert island, she would thank God for her deliverance, make a garden, and find something to preserve. Preserving was almost a mania with Mrs. Bergson. Stout as she was, she roamed the scrubby banks of Norway Creek looking for fox grapes and goose plums, like a wild creature in search of prey. She made a yellow jam of the insipid ground cherries that grew on the prairie, flavoring it with lemon peel; and she made a sticky dark conserve of garden tomatoes... When there was nothing to preserve, she began to pickle."

~ Willa Cather, O'Pioneers

Though I have never read the book (and therefore am not endorsing it), the moment I saw this quote, I was smitten. I am "Mrs. Bergson". While my husband enjoys pouring over seed packets and catalogs in early spring, I begin my gardening journey by "digging" through food preservation cookbooks and archived recipes. 

What will we do with all the produce that is being planted? I contemplate recipes I have seen for sweet and colorful jams, salty sour pickles and other useful foods to stock our pantry. I document the recipes I want to try so they aren't forgotten in the hustle and bustle of it all.

Name	Can	Dry	Ferment	Freeze	Make Medicine
Artichoke
Beans
Beets
Bell peppers

We also like to make sure we have prepared certain foods for the freezer and that some foods get dehydrated. A portion of the herbs may be made into medicines or dried for teas. These goals are also recorded.

I don't like being in the kitchen at the last minute trying to come up with preservation ideas while those buckets of veggies are staring at me. It is very intimidating :) And so, this "food preservation planner" was born (sample of chart shown above).

The planner is broken up into three sections: fruits, herbs and vegetables. The most common produce have already been entered in our chart but there are also blank boxes that you can fill in with the garden goods that I didn't include. This is intended for both the spring and autumn harvests.

To give you an idea, in the bell pepper section, where it says "dry", I will write in "diced" because that is how I like to prepare part of our surplus. In the "freeze" section, I will pencil in "blanched strips" because I like to have these handy for pizza toppings and fajitas. In the "can" section, I will enter in "sweet & sour peppers". If applicable, I will include the web-source or cookbook page number for the recipes I hope to utilize. The fermented and medicine section for bell peppers would be left blank since I have no plans for them in those categories.

What about you? Are you a preservation planner or are you a seed packet gal? Perhaps you are both? I would love to share our printable with you if you are interested. Simply download from this link HERE or from the image below.  You will find more pretty and practical printable projects here.

All the fine print. This post may be shared with some or all of the following link-ups: The Art of Home-Making Mondays, Modest Mom Monday's, Monday's Musings, Make Your Home Sing Monday, Good Morning Mondays,  The Scoop, Tuesdays with a Twist, Raising Homemakers, Wise Woman Link Up, Homestead Blog Hop,  Wow Us Wednesdays,  Coffee and Conversation, Homemaking Thursdays, Home Sweet Home, Our Simple Homestead, Awesome Life Friday Link Up and Create, Bake, Grow & Gather. Thank you lovely ladies for hosting these. This post may contain affiliate links (which are merchant links that help to support this site at no additional cost to you if you purchase an item through them). Clip art for this project was found here.