# How much to put up?



## Macybaby (Jun 16, 2006)

Is there a good site that will help deterimine how much to put up to feed a family of a certain size?

I'm rather complusive about canning/freezing and last weekend DH and I loaded up the back seat and trunk of my car and hauled a large load of canned/frozen food to my brother. He has three young kids and lost his job & home and had to move back near our parents (400 miles from where I live) - but when my SIL told me they were having trouble finding money to buy food - well, last year I had put up more than it has turned out DH and I could eat in maybe three years.

So this year I'd like to do better with planning things out. I don't plan on cutting down what I raise, only what I process for our use. I have no problem sharing excess but someone else can do the processing work. 

So - got any good sites for planning the pantry?

Thanks
Cathy


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## NCLee (Aug 4, 2009)

A FWIW...

In recent years, because of the unrest/unease due to the economy and other concerns, I now preserve as much as I can of anything that I can get. I no longer try to plan for a year, for example. It's fine, if I can buy 3 years worth of turkey to can at $.39 per lb. Who knows what the price of turkeys will be 3 years from now. If they are still available, that is. 

Another factor to consider is crop failures. Remember earlier this year when the freezes wiped out the tomato crops in Florida? Pumpkin crop last year across the country was considered to be a failure by many. 

My 2-cents is to continue to preserve as much as you can. With the anticipated hyper inflation, if it's already in a jar, you won't have to worry as much about the cost of lids in the future. Nor, the availability of lids, if TSHTF. Nor a crop failure.

And, you'll still have the ability to help out family members in their time of need. (I'm not talking about those who sit on their duffs and expect someone to bail them out. I have some of those in my family. Instead, about those who try hard and still find themselves in trouble. It's sure nice to be able to lend them a hand. )

So, my suggestion, again, FWIW, is to keep on doing what you've been doing!

Lee


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Lee gives very good advice.

Make sure you get your jars back. That may be hard if the family is 400 miles away.

Tell you SIL to swallow her pride and get food stamps if she can - that's what they've been paying taxes for all those years.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

That's a good question. For me I put up everything I can as I don't know what tomorrow will bring. But as far as actual numbers, that's a personal thing. It depends on what you eat. For us, we use about 100 qt of spaghetti sauce a year but only about 10-12 cans of tuna. So, what do you eat? 

One site I saw said to make up a list of the typical meals you eat. Then write down the recipe for each. Work out how often a yer you eat it and then figure out how much you need for a year. I started working on it....but life got in the way and I never finished. I think I just need to go back and do the calculations part.

I've found lots of site that "tell you" how much you need to grow for a year. I guess you could just follow that and put up anything you don't eat fresh and assume you'll be close to right.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

One of my older Ball canning guides (issue 31, 1987) has a section called "Garden Planning Guide" and is based on canning for a family of 6. I used the guide in the beginning, but gradually changed to my family of 2's needs. It's a good source for estimating, though. Tells how many quarts to can, how many lbs. to grow for canning and how many 100 ft. rows of each veggie to grow, and even how many seeds or plants needed for each 100 ft. of row, how far apart the rows should be and how far apart the plants should be in each row - very comprehensive. I think the spacing was based on a tractor going down the rows, though, as I was able to get much more in the same size garden.


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## Macybaby (Jun 16, 2006)

Last year I went with the idea that I should eat 5-7 servings of fruit/veggies a day. A serving is half a cup. With two adults, that works out to 5-7 cups a day. 2 cups per pint, so 2 - 3 pints of veggies/fruit a day.

Times 365 days a year - 700 - 1000 pints of fruit and veggies.

I probably got in near the 700 range, but it seems that after 6 months I still had most of it left. We also had chicken from one and two years ago, lots of rabbit and I've got more ready to butcher. Lots of ground beef from two years ago and we got four deer last fall so had plenty of that too. 

Maybe my problem is that we don't eat veggies like we should. We each need to lose another 15-20 lbs to be where we should be (been working on that). We don't go out much and rarely buy food at the store other than dairy.

My husband has accused me of being a compulsive canner. I also have a full time job so I need to get a better handle so I'm not pulling so many late nighters trying to get in produce that we will probably never eat. I have a 4000 sq foot garden and I was trying to figure out which directions I could expand it this year, and DH told me I need to get a bit more of a handle on this.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Macybaby said:


> I also have a full time job......... and DH told me I need to get a bit more of a handle on this.


Do you eat allot of soups, stews, casseroles, etc? If so you can cut your canning time by dehydrating (not to mention it takes a lot less space). I got two large bags of green beans from the farm store (the white paper bags with apples on the side and paper handles - 1/2 or 1/4 bushels maybe) I dried them and they fit into 1 and a 1/2 qt jars.....had I canned them it would have been over a dozen jars. Now I can grab a handful and toss into soup, casseroles, etc. I do the same with potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, onions, apples, bananas, etc. Saves time and space. Just cut them up, place on the trays and go to bed. In the morning they are usually dry and ready to be put into jars.....maybe a 5 min chore. If you get a large dehydrator, like an Excalibur 9 tray, you can do allot in a small amount of time. Gas ovens with pilot lights are great for drying in, too.

I like to save my caning time for meats and beans. I can veggies and fruits, too....just not as much as the meats and beans. Dried applesauce just isn't the same as a quart of applesauce, lol.


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## beaglebiz (Aug 5, 2008)

I put up as much as the garden provides.


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## deb_rn (Apr 16, 2010)

I freeze my garden items... and I keep track in a notebook EVERY year how many containers of each item I freeze....in a few years, you get the idea whether to cut back on an item... or grow more of it.
I live in Wisconsin... I keep my carrots in the ground all winter and cover with 3ft of leaves. A couple times in the snow, I send hubby out to dig enough for a month and rinse them and keep in the refrig. Let mother nature take care of them.
We had to dig the rest of the carrots last week before we plant the garden again. Nice to not have to handle them before using them. They are sweeter after it gets cold anyway... so I don't use a lot before that time. Parsnips work the same way... don't dig before they've had some chilling. Beets can be kept this way too. One year I had a lot of cabbage and covered them as well... they were fine... blanched a bit, but still nice and crispy! Saves a lot of time!
Debbie


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## upnorthlady (Oct 16, 2009)

I always put up more than I can use also. You never know..........maybe next year won't be a good year for something. And you can always give stuff away and help others out. Whenever my kids come to visit, I usually send them home with a jar or two of applesauce or spaghetti sauce or salsa or something (they are city kids). I get my jars back. I also do a lot with wild fruits here. One year I made a lot of currant jelly. Good thing, because the next year wasn't so good. One year I made lots of chokecherry syrup. Next year was bad for chokecherries. 

Pretty much every meal we open up a jar or two of something, so the 490 jars of produce I canned last year are almost gone. I'd say...........keep on canning!!


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## QuiltingLady2 (Jan 3, 2007)

This site has been around forever. http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

Food calculator

http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetable1/a/How-Much-Plant.htm

Garden growing calculator

http://www.landshareco.org/tools/

30 seconds to google them.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

http://gallimaufree.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/food-for-a-year/


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

QuiltingLady2, I went to that first site you listed (I've seen it before) and I don't know where the LDS get their calculations.

For my family of two, it says 100 lbs. of rice. That would equal 200 cups of raw rice which equals 600 cups of cooked rice. 600 cups divided by 365 days per year would be 1.65 cups of rice per day. That's a lot of rice!

What about mayo? 4 qts./year? No way! 300 lbs. of wheat? What would I use it for? Molasses: 2 lbs.? That's only 2 little jars! Honey? 6 lbs. We use 5 lbs/month just in the coffee! Take that site with a LARGE grain of salt.


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## jmtinmi (Feb 25, 2009)

My rule of thumb is to CAN what I can keep track of and rotate through effectively. Currently, I have a bunch of empty jars, so I am planning to can a bunch. I am using a lot of canned meat lately, so I am keeping an eye out for sales. I will be canning up meatballs, stew meat, and B/S chicken breasts as they are on sale. I still have a bunch of canned chicken 1/4s, so I'll pass on that until it gets depleted some. It's a balancing act.


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## PastTense (Mar 22, 2010)

Your own data is going to vastly more useful than what you find on the internet. You said you canned last year. How much did you use? When did you run out other products?


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## Macybaby (Jun 16, 2006)

If I had the time, I would be happy growing and processing everything I possibly could, but I've got to balance my time a bit better. I think a big problem has been overestimating what we eat in the first place. 

I also have to stop the wishful thinking - no matter how easy it is for me to grow broccoli, and no matter that I know it is good for us to eat, we simply don't like it all that much. At least I learned last year that there is no reason for me to plant zuccini. No matter what you can use it for, there is another item I would rather use in it's place.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

suitcase_sally said:


> 300 lbs. of wheat? What would I use it for?


If you grind your own flour (which we do) you'll go through it faster then you think! Consider that we don't buy cake mixes, brownie mixes, bread, etc from the store but make our own. I laugh at the molasses at 2 lbs, too. We need at least 4-5. Honey we use about 10 lbs....but if we ever move out of town....and get bees....that would change drastically. But at $12 for 3lbs, we have to tread lighter.

I agree that LDS calculator is a generic place to start. You have to adjust it for your specific family. I think of that one as the "beans and rice" calculator. Since we don't eat that way normally, it's off for us, too. I've seen lots of calculators over the years that have the ability to adjust to you personal needs, some of which are even free.


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## Becka (Mar 15, 2008)

I calculated this last summer just as a starting point to know how much to can. Here's what I did:
I figured how many jars of green beans we ate per week then multiplied that times 52 (52 weeks in a year)
I did the same for tomatoes, applesauce, pears, etc. If we only ate one jar of applesauce a month, then I multiplied that times 12 to get the yearly amount.

This seemed to work better for me because we don't really follow "portion control" at my house, plus we often have company.


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## Sarabeth (Sep 14, 2008)

Becka said:


> I calculated this last summer just as a starting point to know how much to can. Here's what I did:
> I figured how many jars of green beans we ate per week then multiplied that times 52 (52 weeks in a year)
> I did the same for tomatoes, applesauce, pears, etc. If we only ate one jar of applesauce a month, then I multiplied that times 12 to get the yearly amount.
> 
> This seemed to work better for me because we don't really follow "portion control" at my house, plus we often have company.


This is exactly what I do!! If I get a really good deal on something, I do more, or if someone gives me a bunch of something - I don't grow as much of my own stuff. We have lots of farms here though, and I feel good buying straight from a farmer. But, I digress....


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