Careful notes are the key to freezer success.  I keep each type of food segregated in the freezer and draw a map so that I can find things easily.  Since I clean out the freezer entirely every spring and freeze in clear plastic containers, I don't even need to label my produce.

I do keep a very careful list of how much of each vegetable I've frozen, though.  Using a piece of graph paper, I list the name of each vegetable at the top, then hash off a square for each cup, pint, quart, or gallon (depending on the food) as I throw the day's produce in the freezer.  Once winter comes and I start pulling food out, I cross off the squares for food I've used.  That way I have a quick visual estimate of what I'm getting low on and don't end up eating all of the green beans in December and ignoring the summer squash until February.

This year, I'm finally starting to get a handle on how much of each type of vegetable I should freeze.  I've included a table below with my goals for this year --- keep in mind that you probably like some vegetables more or less than we do and that this is for two people.  The container size listed is a good size to provide one meal for the two of us.  (Some vegetables, like summer squash, become much smaller when they thaw.)  You'll notice my table has very little information on fruit since our fruit hasn't really come into production yet.

Food	Container size	No. of containers
Greens (mixed)	quart	30
Strawberries	pint	infinite
Shelling peas	cup	25
Snow peas	cup	15
Summer squash (mixed)	quart	45
Broccoli	pint	25
Pesto	cup	35
Green beans	pint	60
Blackberries	pint	infinite
Applesauce	cup	25
Corn	pint	25
Cabbage	cup	30
Spaghetti sauce	pint	15
Pizza sauce	pint	20
Whole tomatoes	gallon	15
Winter squash (roasted and mashed)	pint	10
Okra	pint	25

This post is part of our Introduction to Farm Freezing lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Introduction to farm freezing What can I freeze? How do I freeze food? Keeping notes on frozen foods Freezer hints

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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