How to Organize Kitchen Pantry Preserves

Keep stock of all of your hard-earned home-canned food across the year.

By Carolyn Tomlin
Updated on September 24, 2024
article image

Explore these hacks on how to organize kitchen pantry food preserves and different long-term food storage ideas.

Growing up in the country, I helped my family in our large garden and kitchen, harvesting our food, preserving it, and putting it up in my mother’s large food pantry. At the end of the gardening season, shelves were filled with the most colorful varieties of fruits and vegetables: green beans, red tomatoes, purple grape juice, yellow squash pickles, and orange spiced peaches, just to name a few. But what made it unique was the lacy shelf paper and a 3-inch edge that hung over the wooden shelf. When family or visitors would stop by, Mother would say, “Come see my food pantry!” And it was a sight to behold. The filled jars represented hours of work that would feed a family through the cold winter months ahead.

These preservation and storage practices were just common-sense ways of living that country folks knew and used. I continue following these same methods passed down by my family and offer them as “hacks” for the modern homesteader learning how to put up and use up a harvest. They worked then, and they still work today!

How to Organize Kitchen Pantry: Food-Storage Tips

If you have a food pantry, you’re fortunate, indeed. A well-lit pantry or closet will make meal planning easier.

Tennille Short, an extension agent in Madison County, Tennessee, is part of the West Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center in Jackson. Established in 1907, this institute has advised thousands of country folks on keeping records and organizing their summer produce for canning, freezing, and drying fruits and vegetables from summer and fall gardens. Short says, “We recommend a one-year shelf life of canned fruits and vegetables. After this time, use it ASAP. It may still be safe, but you need the space for new fruits and vegetables you’ll process during the current year. Always label and write the date on the jar or frozen package.”

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-803-7096