This was the end result of our spring garden...kind of pathetic, I know. I loved the peas we had last year, so this year, I did 3 of our 4x4 areas again.
After weeks of snacking on them, they reached their peak and I wanted to save what I could for future meals. I looked online and found a great site that explained what I would need to do to freeze them, which is the next best way to have veggies, in my opinion.
I enlisted a few of the kids to help me pull out the cages, plants, and glean the last of the peas....
...Sunshine offered to till the soil for me.
River took a picture of us all...he considered that to be his contribution to the 1.5 hr effort.
This pot is a 20 qt. Considering all of the free-rein munching that went on for weeks, I would say that was a pretty good crop, especially considering the total space for around 15-20 qts of peas was about 12x12 ft worth of land!
We ended up picking around 10 qts worth of peas for freezing. Yay!
The first pot is the one with the raw peas, the second is the boiling water for blanching, and the third pot is the one with ice and water for setting the peas.
Blanching, which is an important part of the freezing process, is done by placing the peas in your boiling water for 1.5-2 minutes (depending upon which site you are looking at). We boiled ours for 2 minutes, just to be safe.
After two minutes, remove the peas....
...and place them in an ice bath for approximately 2 minutes, to stop the cooking process.
After they are cooled, you will put them on a towel and dry them off.
Lastly, put them in some freezer bags ( I prefer the quart-sized ziploc bags for our family) and place them in the freezer.
As with any veggie water, make sure you save it for your garden, once it has cooled off...your veggies will thank you. ;)
So, for around 1 hours worth of extra work, I now have about 10 qts of peas available for all sorts of yummy meals and snacks.....all from my own garden, grown without any chemicals or pesticides. YUM! :)
I enlisted a few of the kids to help me pull out the cages, plants, and glean the last of the peas....
...Sunshine offered to till the soil for me.
River took a picture of us all...he considered that to be his contribution to the 1.5 hr effort. 
This pot is a 20 qt. Considering all of the free-rein munching that went on for weeks, I would say that was a pretty good crop, especially considering the total space for around 15-20 qts of peas was about 12x12 ft worth of land!
We ended up picking around 10 qts worth of peas for freezing. Yay!
The first pot is the one with the raw peas, the second is the boiling water for blanching, and the third pot is the one with ice and water for setting the peas.
Blanching, which is an important part of the freezing process, is done by placing the peas in your boiling water for 1.5-2 minutes (depending upon which site you are looking at). We boiled ours for 2 minutes, just to be safe.
After two minutes, remove the peas....
...and place them in an ice bath for approximately 2 minutes, to stop the cooking process.
After they are cooled, you will put them on a towel and dry them off.
Lastly, put them in some freezer bags ( I prefer the quart-sized ziploc bags for our family) and place them in the freezer.
As with any veggie water, make sure you save it for your garden, once it has cooled off...your veggies will thank you. ;)
So, for around 1 hours worth of extra work, I now have about 10 qts of peas available for all sorts of yummy meals and snacks.....all from my own garden, grown without any chemicals or pesticides. YUM! :)
~.~ the purple sprout
