The Wonderful World of Frozen Vegetables

Frozen vegetables have revolutionized not only the kitchen, but also the garden! No longer do we grow things that last only until they start to rot; now we can grow more produce, and any excess is put straight into deep freeze for the off-season when vegetables are more expensive.

Growing vegetables isn’t cheap. A packet of seeds mightn’t cost much, but buy ten different packets, and the money is already starting to mount up. Before modern living brought us appliances like the deep freezer, vegetables would have a shelf life of a few weeks.

Vegetable growing is labor intense, it might look as if they grow themselves, but that’s only to an onlooker who doesn’t know much about gardening! There’s a lot of work and energy goes into the crop of vegetables, on top of the initial seed cost, for just a few weeks of food. Then there’s other costs to factor in, such as pest control, and the possibility of losing a late crop (root vegetables especially) if the temperatures drop dramatically and the vegetables get frost damaged.

With freezers, we can take the vegetables out of the garden, and use some for immediate use, and place others to one side to be frozen ready for the winter ahead. Growing for freezing makes more financial sense. Increase the crop by using the same seed packets, but planting more of them (there wasn’t any point growing more vegetables earlier because they would have rotted).

How are Vegetables Frozen?

Different vegetables are frozen in different ways. It depends what kind of vegetable they are. Most vegetables are cleaned, scalded in boiling water for a few minutes (time depends on the vegetable) then cooled and bagged ready to be frozen. To retain taste, some vegetables are better cooked before being frozen.

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