HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR PANTRY & FOOD STORAGE (INCLUDING SMALL SPACES)

[Music] hey guys this is josh and kelly with homesteading family and welcome to this week's episode of the pantry chat food for thought today we are gonna be covering food storage organization that's right we are producing a lot of food on a homestead or buying in bulk and so today we're just talking about how to organize all that we've had a lot of questions a lot of questions on just what to do with everything that's canning season some people are canning for the first time and all of a sudden they're canning along organize this to use it throughout the and so that prompted a discussion on just general food storage organization yeah now to be clear this video is not about building too much food storage space that's a whole nother subject I think we make covers yeah but this is just about organizing and particularly for those of you that don't have a ton of space we've been through that we're still space challenged at times so what do you do how do you just figure out a way to make things work and store things you've grown root crops you want to store them as long as you can even though you have a root cellar you've canned a whole bunch your pumpkins like those sitting back there what do you do with all those so that's what we're gonna cover today yeah but first what's going on yeah first we do a little bit of chitchat for if you are a new viewer we do a little bit of to chat first before we get into the main topic if you want to skip ahead to the main topic today we have that time stamp drops already you down in the description absolutely what's going on I am good I'm very good all right I'm great it's cold outside lows in the low teens low teens yeah yeah I think we got a little over than that even one night didn't Lee oh we did actually we hit seven yeah getting cold it's getting cold I went to go pull a leak out of the garden the other day and it was frozen salt you know I gotta tell you we have a lot of friends up in Canada uh-huh on our channel there and they're gonna be giving us a hard time for sale I know confronted us negative 20 negative 30 no big deal okay so um I have actually been enjoying the cold because we have the new wood-burning cook stove and I am having so much fun with all my homesteading projects on the wood-burning cook stove let me tell you doing lard rendering lard down is perfect on a wood-burning cook stove because I can just set it at a really low temperature and it can just kind of bubble away for a long time low and slow if you haven't watched my lard video go watch it and just know that I say low and slow like a million times in it because that is put a link in for you guys um so anyways I've been doing that we've been making a lot of chicken broth we had a lot of the other parts from our big butchering day oh yeah the feet next different things like that and so we're getting a lot of that out of the freezer now into broths and then can so it can go on the shelf or we're just eating it too did you guys see that multitasking photo I put up on Facebook yesterday today anyways that was your on the cook stove your while your chicken broth all your lard that you're rendering down and the Apple soon as you're turning into cider syrup yeah you guys ever heard of site I haven't done a video on this I should do a video on this soon yeah now I'm gonna have to and it's just a boiled down syrup in from cider boiled down apple cider or apple juice would be the other term that's a little more universally across countries known for a sweet cider and it's thickened just by simmering it down and it makes an amazingly appley powerful flavor that is so good and very and traded so what are you gonna eat us out in um so it's a really good drizzle Dover apple pie that's how I just think we're the ice cream it's on the apple pie you know what I'm really excited about I had a friend tell me that she uses hers in place of honey for granola oh wow I thought that would be just wonderful and I love the idea of we don't have bees yet we don't have our own honey but we do have our apple trees so I really like the idea of just having a home produced sweetener and we were running some numbers on this because they're always curious what's the cost of things I'm worth it to do ourself as it worth it to buy and so you were curious about honey and we ran some numbers and if you have your own trees or source - really really cheap fruit and you can press it it's definitely cost effective to do the site to do the cider to replace honey and certain things and even buying I think the apple juice at what three to five dollars again is right in there three to five dollars a gallon it's cost-effective unprovable into current honey honey cost which is about fifty dollars again we're right now for good quality honey the juice gets more than a gallon that's it starts to not be cost-effective as far as a honey replacement still a real real nice treat yes absolutely I'm very good okay moving on what have you been up to oh gosh we've just been getting prepped for winter the we've got all the hay in finally we are just getting ready to go get bulk wood shavings yeah you've got a rig up long trailer and put sides on it so that we can hold hopefully 20 30 yards shavings for the barn for the barn right putting every bedding for the cows and the Sheep and the chickens in the barn so getting ready to take care of that and just winter prepping the garden getting ready to compost all the trees spread shavings mm-hmm kind of doing a layered mulching system and some places that we're gonna prep for food forest yeah it's returning some areas into a food forest and so we're getting the ground ready for that yeah absolutely okay I'm just kind of getting I had a winter here and getting some of these last projects done yeah it won't be long before snow is on the ground and we're kind of not able to do some of those things absolutely yeah okay so good hope you guys are all doing good and getting ready for winter getting prepared we put out a video last week about that and well I think cover a question or two here okay right now for the QA great yeah sound good sounds good okay um one one no this wasn't a question something that somebody noted commented on the video that was really really good that I didn't talk about and that was vehicle prep for winter oh yeah yeah and yeah that's that's a good one and it would have been good to have had that in there and make sure your maintenance is done your tires are in good shape your brakes are in good shape especially the more wintry weather that you have or rainy weather I try to keep the vehicles fueled up and topped off more in those kind of conditions if you're gonna need chains or snow tires or studs you want to go through all of that make sure you've got that together just general vehicle maintenance good so thanks for calling that out I don't remember your name but that was very important one so I know a few on the vehicle I'm not the vehicle expert in their family but I know ones that make a big difference to me is get the windshield wiper fluid and the anti-freezing windshield wiper fluid and fix any Nick's or chips in your windshield before winter happens because those will turn it into big yeah you want to get that done before the weather starts even fluctuating too much that's when you get those cracks we actually have one that needs to get fixed no I don't think about so good call out on that thank you very very important yep um let's see here we have a question from Sara Martin what about wrapping your pipes so the water doesn't freeze in them and burst do you not have to do that that is a great question great call-out we don't have to do that currently we have the only things we have outside that are exposed our water is all in frost free bibs the risers that shut off down on the ground and drain the pipe if you're not familiar with those look those up those are very very handy on the farm you know it just saves you a lot a lot of fuss in the wintertime yeah that shutoff just goes down to below and go 2 3 4 feet depending on the pipe and depend on where live will dictate how deep you need to go and so we have those so that just self drains so we don't have standing water pipes that have to be thawed the pump house is very very well insulated and we just have a very low heat source in there to keep it just above freezing you know and that's it so no we don't have to do that but we have lived in places where you've got to do that and I know a lot of you do and so excellent call out Sarah I'm just reminding us too if you've got a pump house that's not insulated any exposed pipes that you're gonna be running water and you can't shut off that would have been another one make sure that you're shutting off and draining irrigation pipes any water outside that you're not using and if you do have to leave it on absolutely you need a heat source for that yeah so good good question yeah and I think we were gonna talk just a second about canning water we had some questions about canning water yeah and you can see how to do that I mean your own water at home you do not need to go by the plastic jugs of water for your backup for your water backups and you just have to water baths can them for 20 minutes so you just fill hot water boiling water into your jars put them into a canner that's at about 180 degrees you're kind of hot packing would be the term that we use there so you want about a 180 degree canner which is means it's steaming well but not boiling yet no bubbles and you can them for 20 minutes at that full rolling boil just for your elevation so you need to check your your elevation times real good yeah and that's a great way if you have jars sitting around you know don't let them just sit empty doing nothing half the year especially if you're going into part of the year that you're maybe more emergency prone or whatever it is and not really a month it really depends on where you're at and a few people ask why and not everybody would need to can water we don't can water we have a lot of they're good resources but in some places that's very beneficial to have some water on a dozen it's ready to go it's ready to drink it's safe and personally I'd like it stored in glass better in plastic so if you have any cars anyways it's a better source and you know it and so for some situations that is a great way to go yeah but not necessarily all situations well I really like that if you have a canner that you're filling anyways with food and you have some spaces in it maybe you're only doing a few jars of your food just go ahead and put the water in there it can can for longer than the 20 minutes that won't hurt it at all it can even be pressure canned if you have spaces in your pressure canner that won't hurt it at all as long as it's can for that baseline 20 minutes but that's a great way to just make use of a canner that's already boiling away just fill it up good there you go get some work and if you need to if not I'll be there you go already you're ready to get on to topic today yeah this is actually in response to somebody's question I don't know if they have that pulled up do we an exact question about these don't we had a few emails on this topic and it's appropriate for the season right now and we had a few other topics of roundness that we were going to be doing so it just fit in real well right okay but somebody was specifically the one that I'm thinking of was asking about organizing their food storage because they had a smaller space than they had had before and they were having trouble getting it all in and finding things and knowing how to organize is that the person that had just started canning a whole lot I feel like some there was one thing just heard canning a lot and a lot of different things and all of a sudden was going whoa how do I put it away and start having a problem but I'm gonna I'm gonna store this home and access it what I'm gonna do with the jars right so that's only one part organization so I think you've got a few topics to consider before we get into specifics yeah so we're talking about organization really anything specifically food we have some overall principle ala see we've got things flashing okay so we got number one this may seem really obvious and maybe it's almost insulting but only store the food that you're gonna eat like don't go get something that's on sale in a large amount if you don't eat it and you're not going to eat it and I think especially when you're getting into prepping mindset sometimes people get stressed to get excited they feel like oh I really got a problem they just bought and get a bunch of stuff yeah and so I think the point is give a little thought to you know what you're putting out what you're storing where you're buying yeah this is this should be the food that you're living off of everyday the food that your family likes to eat so just store what you're going to eat and what you already eat that's just a good basic principle absolutely keep small usable amounts near your kitchen this is what old canisters you know kitchens used to have canisters of things maybe they still maybe people still do that or we've kind of outgrown small storage nearby is five gallon buckets yeah but if you are buying large amounts of something make sure you have a space to keep it accessible to your kitchen in smaller amounts so that you're not having to run back and forth to wherever your food storage is um consider the dangers of each types of stored food and take the appropriate measures to mitigate those dangers or those the enemies of those types of food we're gonna be talking about those and storage types in just a minute so getting into that but some things the real enemy is moisture or the real enemy is breakage and there are things that you can do to make sure that those don't ruin your food and you really need to think about that with each type of food that you're storing temperature absolutely dark versus sunlight yeah all sorts of things so we'll get into that Martin another one is make sure you've set up a rotation system you should always be eating the oldest thing first so you need to know that how you're going to be rotating those stores before you start adding to your collection right which means you need to make sure and label we've easily we miss but can I show this yeah you know we just it's an eggplant eggplant a Puttanesca is really really good by the way teaches this one in her class but it's it's titled and it's dated and you know occasionally stuff gets lost and you know and if it's not you just don't know where it fits in you you think you're gonna know what's in that bag that's in the freezer or what's in that jar or that bucket and I'm a good one for that I'm Stahl remember I got it I'm usually pretty good at details and I found that no yeah you just have to label everything so absolutely good thought there and you know my organization systems are gonna look different than your organization systems and the way our minds work are different the way your mind works so his faces are organized differently than the spaces I manage so make sure that your grouping and why don't we get together and organize something together it comes out here perfectly just plug your ears in the process because there might be a little bigger so make sure you're organizing not in a way that somebody tells you but in a way that makes it so that you can find your stuff again if that's organizing it by type great maybe it's organizing it by food type versus preservation method type you know for us a lot of times our dehydrated goods and our fermented goods are mixed all in with our canned goods and it's more honestly organized by size of jar because that's how we're shelves are and so I know how to find it based on the size of the jar so just do what makes sense to you so that you can find your own stuff within those parameters of good storage for you yes we exactly what's grouping them together so that you can find them well well we got a good list of different things so we better move down okay and we are gonna start with canned good canned goods we're talking about jarred good I think start talking about jarring instead of canning I think that they confusing term we had one guy really just that about Victor Bowen with that with that about keys is not canning on you know he was looking for information on actually preserving things you know in other countries they call it bottling and that that's closer so jarring this we can start his friend Jori Jori what do you think jarring it's definitely definitely more practical okay so anyways we're talking about our canned goods yes um and the enemies of your canned goods number one probably is breakage if you live in an earthquake prone place please put a little some sort of brace which we had to do begin from the mountains of California shelves had to have a rail on them yeah the way we've built them so that I mean you know it's just you're not gonna overcome everything but a minor earthquake so we would get keeps them on the shelf absolutely just think about you know that takes a few minutes to do a little bit of prep to do and it saves you from losing well that's other other breakage is just I'm getting knocked over and if they're not organized well and right yeah yeah you know so maybe you I would say with an open back and a lot of times you see those those are the shelving units you often can get at big-box stores or Costco or places and we dealt with that for years give it a go knocked over backwards is a major problem yeah our people opiods are getting knocked off the shelf or whatever so you have those those are great those can be very great they're not the most space efficient but for somebody trying to get up some shelving they can be great just get them against a wall and you know attach them to the wall somehow so you even put plywood backs on them in a few places that we needed to we couldn't put them against the wall yeah so yeah absolutely so other things other problems with canned goods we'll have to move through this a little faster for time rusting lids don't put them anywhere too moist right uh-huh can you just because you will rest your lids and you'll lose food storage faster than you would if they were in a drier environment direct light keep them out of direct sunlight is really what I mean to say it you know it's always best to be in a dark environment that's gonna make any type of food last longer but definitely keep them out of direct sunlight um freezing or heating for canned goods you will lose your seals you might even break jars if they freeze or heating meaning if they start getting up into cooking ranges above 150 you'll lose your seal real fast you know I want to add that you just even if you're not going into heat you know too hot or freezing you want it as temperature stable as you can get for food storage environments you don't want a lot of fluctuation so if you have spaces in your house you're having to try to figure out what to do with things try to just find the closet or the space in your house that is the area that is most temperature stable and not getting pretty cool at night and then really hot during the day yeah that's not as good for the quality of your food for long there are something like linens in that place instead of food it's not your best food okay so once you have taken into consideration the enemies of your canned goods figure out how you're gonna handle your empty jars this is a major problem for people who can wecan it collect a lot of jars I I don't know how many thousands of jars yeah but we have a lot of jars and getting your canned goods after you have used some food and dealing with that empty jar is really important so I like to say for us it's been really good to have canning boxes boxes that the canning jars go in but the empty jars can go in and get tucked either in a high place or a low place to get out of the way so you're not fighting with them so ultimately one of my ideas is in the pantry as we're developing out this larger pantry is to actually have shelves for you that those jars can go into is there a little more space efficient than the boxes right now we said the box is in a corner in the basement numbers well yeah but they're also easier to get to and identify when you need to go grab a batch of jars and happen to go through boxes so if you can do that that would that if you can have a dedicated storage - sort you know which ones a full jar now there's these empty jars yeah you just have a place you can set them that's ideal absolutely so once you have that you need to set up your rotation system you should really be thinking about these things before you get too many jars on your shelf so you don't have to go reorganize them all but make sure everything is labeled and has the year labeled oh no nothing else okay and then you want to make the best use of your space by having properly spaced shelves if you can very very helpful especially if you have space challenge yes smaller shelves for your pint-sized jars and larger size for your quart sized jars you can get so many more jars into a space if you have shelves that are size but I've got a video on that I can I can put a link in for that and our shelves we have space for five gallon buckets yes for one gallon mm-hmm for half gallon hmm the courts I think I did the upper ones pints or quarts I can't quite remember music we don't do a lot of pipes at this point but a lot of you do so if you can build them that you can get a lot of stored food in a very small space one of those just a 4x8 you know sheet of plywood with shelves built on to it put into a corner somewhere holds a lot of food it was a lot of yeah if you space it out like that ya know just to clarify we don't can in gallon jars when we can cider dry goods and then group by type however makes sense to you again whether that's type of food or you know just where you have the space for it if you have shelves that are size like that you know your plants are gonna go in one place if you have a way to label yourself that can be really helpful to really it's a little chalkboard tape along the edge is great all righty we better move on yeah this is gonna go over a little bit so I hope you're comfortable cover everything but we may have to speed it up here okay dehydrated food storage organization for dehydrated food this is things like your dried herbs your dried vegetables your dried fruits all of your dehydrated type things that sit on the shelf some dehydrated things have to go in the freezer or they're recommended for the freezer this is for things that go on the shelf and so your enemies too dehydrated foods our number one moisture that's a major major problem yeah so if you're putting them in slightly warm but very very dry into a closed jar you should have a really good seal on that keep some moisture out which is really good if you put in some people use oxygen absorbers but you can also use vacuum seal your vacuum seal is a little rice we're at the bottom because that absorbs the moisture so all of those things are great again where are we direct light and of course insect champ damage now if they're going straight in from a dehydrator straight into a lockdown jar you probably won't have that problem most insect damage comes from storing things in bags like paper bags or you know canisters the insects can get into so you just need to think through that in Kenny can I add I know this is not what we do so much but some people do take large batches of things in vacuum seal them mmm we've kind of moved away from the vacuum sealers we don't really like to waste and we found that they're very unpredictable yeah or maybe we don't know how to use them I don't know but they just not our preferred but but some people do that very well and yeah that's a good you can pack a lot into a space if you're creating your own dehydrated foods for for whatever situation and that's great well thank you the moisture out as long as it starts out and not moist it'll keep the moisture to yourself good and you like to store them a lot of times that works fits in good with the canned goods area these shelves that we were talking about because I like to store my dehydrated goods in the glass jars like this you know again liking to store it in the glass rather than plastic if you have that option and they're so sealable so they just fit right on the shelves so I just mix them right in there well make sure they're well labeled and dated in an applicable reason for that and talking about preserving what you're going to eat a lot of times those dried foods are gonna go into something that's been candy I know you'll do a marinara or a pizza sauce and then there are different dried like you dry jalapenos for me yeah this is what's coming to mind and so you can go grab those together there's in the same space they're easy to get to yeah okay so moving on to bulk bins and storage oh yeah because that is a very effective way to save money and have long-term food stores in place absolutely if you are not buying book foods you should be and I think even if you're a small yeah even if you're a small family yeah it just saves so much money so much less waste so much less shopping you don't have to shop as often and that's actually a huge time saver money saver and everything yeah but you do need to be ready to store them properly and so things like bulk amounts of sugar flour wheat beans oats wheat coffee beans because we're not roasting your own coffee bean you wanna save money yeah they're not a restaurant salt please make sure you have a bucket of salt somewhere that you need to make sure that you have the right types of bins you can't just bring those home and stick them in their bags and leave them in a bag giant 50 you can but not a great idea either you're gonna insect problems or something so you really want to deal with it we're gonna clean yeah animals moisture kids so so then what's it when it comes to bulk our bulk is quite sizable a lot of people five gallons is bulk for them of a lot of these yeah so five gallons food grade storage bins yeah even get some that are airtight yeah the gamma seals are really good especially if you have moisture issues and you're storing them in a you know high moisture place like a basement or something that's really good insect damage we already talked about is a major major problem for bulk buys you need to be ready to put a little diatomaceous earth in there or in your bulk bins or put them in the freezer for about three days before you get them into your bullpens to kill off anything that might hatch in your bucket and and with that so we just mentioned the 55-gallon drums yes just because that's the more you can put into a space the more organized you are the more you organize in a space and so one of the next steps is one of those big drums and and those are very very handy for long-term storage you know in saving space if if you are up for storing that much yeah and if you need that much you don't want to store too many years worth of food because it just won't be as good but you want to build a rotate through orientation is we have things go fill up a 55-gallon drum of things then that refills our five gallon bucket which is near to the kitchen so that we can be using things from the five gallon bucket row so that we don't always have to be running out to some out space or basement space to grab our stuff so good okay anything else there in bulk bins hmm I think we're pretty good cool all right freezers organizing your freezers ok the enemy of freezers power power failure or accidental freezer failure that's right oh yeah we know some folks that had that and so just a tip wherever your freezers are make sure you're always looking at the little light yeah whenever you're going by going through or and if they're out of the way somewhere I mean hopefully they're near other food storage but make a point to check those regularly real really daily every other day at the least you can get a couple days not knowing but before too long stuff is gonna start going bad so and that's awful that's a horrible thing but they also have these small gadgets that are alarms that will set off a very loud yeah so if you're in an area that you might not see that's really worth it because you just don't want to lose a major film no no generally we're pulling out of it every day so for us that's not a problem yeah we see it Rask okay yeah okay so in your freezers you know this is a real problem with freezers rotating things yeah because we tend to just kind of keep filling on the top right you really need to get to a place at least once a year where you empty out the whole freezer deal with all those odd bits and ins and things that you don't generally know what to do with you're not reaching for them and start fresh with a club right and defrosted so you don't know what's in there and the oldest always gets used okay and you have so organizing it so there's two types of freezer storage well there's actually three there's a regular freezer that's attached to your fridge that's obviously not gonna hold very much and it doesn't take you to the temps for long-term storage so so those are great for rotating things through so things are gonna use sub-zero temps for long-term storage you know things just don't hold well in your regular household freezer that's attached refrigerator yeah so for storage you want either an upright freezer deep freezer or a chesty freezer I prefer the chest freezers some people like the uprights because they have shelves and they're a little easier to organize it however every time you open that you lose a lot of cold air cold air moves down yeah and they're just I just don't prefer them for that and our level of storage need to be higher so but that is one way and you can use the shelves in there to organize your food and move it through or or have different types different levels for your meat or your chicken or whatever for us that's not enough space so we need the deep freezers a lot of them comes the deep deep chest freezers a lot of them come with dividers and moveable racks those are very nice you could use those dividers yeah if you don't need to absolutely maximize your storage I can see why a lot of people would like those because it got little bins and you put your different mean in them and some shelves that move around that's a great way to organize for us we we have to pack them absolutely full and so we still organize and for us it's freezers yeah so will we actually have a chicken freezer and you know often a beef freezer and then a pork and lamb freezer some some amount like that yeah and we just want to organize them in a way that we're gonna use them I often need to talk to Carolyn and say all right we're putting in the beef and we're putting in the pork how do we want to stack it so that we can get to the things we want regularly so we don't have to go and dig through the freezer right a lot you don't want to just throw everything in there and then later you go home and the sausage the Italian sausage that I want is that the Box on the bottom right and the roast that you're gonna use the big roasted you can use less often or all in the top right so you just want to give a little thought to how you're gonna use the meat and so you can get to the things you want to as you go through the season and you work those things down that's the easiest way I've found to organize that and try to have the different types of meat that we want throughout the year right good yeah good okay okay all right common storage otherwise known as root cellar ring yep or not root cellar knee if you don't have a root cellar so this is for things that can just sit out whether it's your pumpkins or your dried herbs that can sit out hanging your onions your garlic or your root vegetables that are stored without preserving them a different way so your potatoes when you did sitting out they're just not being preserved there's nothing there not just sitting out in the house everywhere at least not long-term yeah exactly so so the enemies of these things are often molding or really probably the biggest one is temperature to warm a particular wilting right right or drying out so these things are generally really environmentally sensitive they need correct temperatures or correct temperature range and the correct humidity right so you're gonna have two different you know if you want to broadly group them generalize them the more advanced you want to get yeah you need cooler dry cooler we mean we're talking ideally in the 40s uh-huh right yeah and you want sometimes humid cool cool a lot of your root crops at a toes you want more humid yeah yeah and things like your squash and your onions can be drier yeah they need to be yeah but they still all want cool and no light no low light cool dark but with some air movement right they all need air movement so so those are the ideals that people try to create and they create a root cellar either a humid environment or or a drier environment most of us just don't have that ideal environment so how do you organize that how do you put that together you've been very creative over the years you do the best you can right right and I've seen some really creative things done for us we have picked the coolest dampest space that we can find in the basement in the base and you know we can get things quite a few months in that space now it's not ideal and the carrots are sprouting and different things happen because it's not an ideal circumstance but it is food storage well sometimes like this space I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna put a little hole in the floor joists in the rim yeah and be able to allow colder air in yeah okay you're also doing that in a room a little side room up by the kitchen right it's not quite a pantry yeah but that has a window on it so you can take a room if it's isolated and controlled by opening and closing the window and right now in the wintertime we're able to keep that in the low 40s without a problem in that whole room so it becomes like almost like a almost refrigerator so that's really nice it you good well I just just giving you some ideas you know we've you can look for under the house a lot of times I know your house can be good sometimes a water heater closet and how big it is and where it's located get creative and then of course you have to think about that organization of how you're gonna use things and pull them out of that spray we had an old neighbor who wanted to store apples through the winter but she didn't have an interior space she took an old refrigerator put it on her porch didn't it wasn't running but she could turn the light bulb on in it and that would keep it from freezing so she would open and close the door so there were some Indian airflow right so whenever it was warm enough she'd open the door and then she closed it and turned the light on if it was gonna be a hard freeze so you can get really creative you really want to group those things by type that is really the best way one because some of them give off gases that affect others and together just so you can find the things really the most important part of storing food this way is constant management you have to be looking at them all the time making sure they're knowing what's gonna last longer than others a lot of times apples will last quite a long time you know we put them in an ice chest leave the lid cracked put them in the garage thank you cold Bell go we've seen apples go all the way through winter like yes and all perfect conditions they're protected from freezes and they do really well likewise we've had squash and pumpkins particularly say squash winter pumpkin winter squashes question we've sometimes had nowhere to put them but in the house we're on the edges of the dining room or something they don't last as long but they'll last for a while especially the harder skin varieties yeah and that's still you can still do that if you think you're long ways like that yeah so the best once you've got absolutely okay I know we're moving on time okay store-bought storage items like your actual canned goods that you're bringing in in cans um things like olive oil honey tuna things like that that you're probably not gonna stock up like major bulk like a bull grain or something but you're bringing in from the store regularly for us we can't grow olive oil so we're you have to buy that in the enemies for that would be your breakage obviously having them safe and secure in a spot but getting old is a very real problem for a lot of those items things like oils olive oil that's gonna get old and not be good for very long so you really need to know what you're storing how long it's gonna last and be optimized I say I know how much you're gonna use how much I have on hand right and be able to rotate that through regularly other things of course the direct light just keep them out of the direct light that's just kind of goes for pretty much all food storage right there and I think that this is where these custom shelves or a nice shelving unit allows you to have all these kinds in one space and just better distribution you take a small space and hold a law that you can hold your canned goods you can hold your dehydrated goods you can hold your store-bought stuff you gotta hold some of your bulk stuff in small spaces with good shelving it's worth building them or you know buying the best ones you can find that or the shelves are really adjustable yeah yeah probably extra shows de filling they're just gonna help your organization a lot yeah absolutely okay moving on ferments Berman's long-term ferments is what we're talking about here these the major enemies for these is mold you know but that you usually has to do with how you're preparing them to begin with so and then you've got drying out if they're not in some sort of a sealed container you don't want the liquid to evaporate off of those so when they go into long-term storage you really want some sort of a lid or something that's gonna stop the evaporation of the liquid off of those things of course light but a major problem with fermented items is contamination if you're storing them long-term you really want them to stay clean otherwise you will end up with a layer of dust and grime which can cause mold to form on something so just make sure that you're protecting it from any sort of contamination again that lid whose a great way to go just get a lid on it so you get that regularly during the active fermenting stage those permanent should probably be up in the kitchen or somewhere where you're watching them and yes then you need to be burping them you need to be watching them once they have completed their initial fermentation they should be able to go a long time without much fuss it doesn't hurt to keep it on especially if your storage area is warm if you're working with a warm storage area you will still have to romantic and going yeah okay so keep those fermented foods on a shelf dark place keep them from freezing keep them from getting too hot so the temperature time is really important and you should be good okay good cool well and just one more section to cover real quick because we are not experts at this yes we're working on it but that is cheese storage and cured meats yeah and of course you got to have the skill to be producing a lot of cheese to get to storing it you know I'm saying with cured meats we're developing that with cheese Wow starting work on that and in general if you're gonna move towards that you need a space that is cool semi-humid I think yeah and and clean and clean very clean base no shelf is not the place for your cheese grater proof yes absolutely cured meats you can hang and those are pretty easy still want cool and dark that they can hang pretty easily again that's one that's on our skill to do list to really master cream yeah and um one more though because somebody's gonna ask okay because you are known for water glossing those eggs I don't live gallon bins to get through the winter yes how do you manage those as far as organization using them and storing them okay great question I make sure I take the five gallon buckets that's what I often do them in because I we need a lot to get through and so we end up with a kind of a row of five gallon buckets and I write on the edge of the fine gallon buckets or I take an index card and I write on those and then use shipping clear tape to put that right on in there so that I can always see which one came first so I do the dates the fill dates on those along with what it is in there and then I try to just line those up in that coolest area that I have generally that's on those same shelves that we're talking about about all the other things down in the five gallon bucket space where I can just see what I've got real fast and they can stay out of the way until I need them yeah yeah very cool yeah well guys that about wraps it up and we just really want to encourage you to work with what you have do the best you can experiment find spaces and don't let not having the ideal conditions stop you from doing something one of the reasons we've been able to do so much is we've just pushed the boundaries figured out what works and what doesn't work and have worked with what we have you can store a lot under a bit yes water heater how some corner and now is you could even frame up a temporary wall on the north side of the house yeah you know to make an ideal space that's maybe got a little window in em and just just be creative and think creatively and creating spaces that work for you so that you can try things and keep building skills and working through it all yeah alrighty well next week we're gonna talk about building up your food storage yes so less about organization but how to start to build up kind of I guess that prepared mindset in larger stores of food I think yeah it can be preparedness first money savings from ways less waste all of the waste efficiency really really good reasons to build up your food storage and be keeping more food in your house absolutely yeah sounds good we like yeah all right guys it's been great hanging with you hope you have a great week and we'll see you [Music]

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 58,062

Rating: 4.9322033 out of 5

Keywords: Homesteading, Sustainable, Living, Homesteading Family, Food Preservation, food storage, pantry organization, kitchen organization, organizing tips, pantry organization ideas, small pantry organization, kitchen storage, storage solutions for small spaces, cheap pantry organization, how to organize your kitchen, easy pantry organization, pantry organization on a budget, pantry organization small, kitchen organization kitchen storage, pantry organization 2019

Id: Yd-mrZVfd6Y

Length: 43min 52sec (2632 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 10 2019