Many consider freezing the easiest and some foods tolerate only freezing. But then you are electricity dependent and space and time of storage limited.

Drying is another option but is also electricity dependent and has limited shelf life and can be time consuming. Still some items like peppers, onions, and tomatoes lend themselves to drying.

Another option is to build a root cellar for things like potatoes, squash, onions, and such but storage time is limited by the type of vegetables, weather in your area, and the quality of the root cellar and usually limited to 1 season.

Canning is the most versatile and the longest "shelf-life" oriented. Relatively easy once you know the basics and the sources of the safe recipes. And with a few exceptions, most any garden produce may be canned in some fashion - pressure canning required for things such as beans and corn and meat. Storage is limited only by your space and shelf life for most things is essentially indefinite.

A combination of all of the above gives you the most variety to work with in case of need but if you had to pick one method then IMO learning to can your garden produce - and that includes the required pressure canning - would be the one method to pick.

As for produce to plant, it all depends on what you will eat. Tomatoes clearly, cukes, beans, corn, and fruits - meats if possible.

There is lots of great reading here on the many things we all preserve regularly and how we do it. And some time spent exploring NCHFP (linked below) the source of the current approved guidelines is bound to give you many ideas. Also consider picking up a copy of the Ball Blue Book (kind of a canners bible) for all the basics.

Hope this helps. and welcome to the forum.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preserving

Kabuti - You may also want to check out the 'Homesteading' forum. This topic comes up every now and then, and I'm sure a search would pull up lots of results. (Sorry, I don't know how to post clickable links to my post or I would do that for you - I really need to learn to do that). There have been discussions from small scale pantry storage to mega-feed-your-family-for-a-year storage.
Hope this helps.
~ Tracy

Welcome, kabuti!

I agree with everything above.

If your goal is to put just a few things up "in case" and have very limited time to do it, freezing and drying are probably the most time efficient.

However, if your goal is long term self-sufficiency, canning is going to serve you well. It's not hard.
Start with water bath (also refered to as BWB, which is Boiling Water Bath). You can do most fruits, jam/jelly, pickled foods, tomatoes. You'll need a pressure canner for most vegetables that aren't pickled.

Please check out the sites/books recommended and use approved recipes for safety.

Come back often, we love to answer questions!! LOL

Hi Kabuti,
Where are you located? This does somewhat affect the best methods of preserving. I see zone 9 listed but that could mean a lot of things really.

I'm in zone 9 (central FL). We use a variety of ways to put things by. In the dry spring here we like to dry things. I can start by drying in the sun with some things and then move them into the dehydrator to finish them off. I also started canning about a year ago and really love having my own canned soups on hand as convenience food. Some foods naturally keep longer than others. Sweet potatoes grow well here but we are having some trouble with weevels so I won't be growing them for the next year. Winter Squash is another that can keep naturally for several months but I've found it isn't quite as long storing in our climate as it might be elsewhere.

One of the simplest ones to grow for storage in a hot climate I think is southern peas (like cow peas or crowder peas) they are really just beans as far as use goes. I grow them during seasons when it is too hot for other veggies and they make good nitrogen fixing cover crops. I collect the pods any time after they are plump and I have blanched the fresh green peas to freeze them before but I will often just stick the dryer pods onto the passive drying rack in our dining room. After they are dry I will split the pods open and collect the dry beans into a ziplock and throw them in the freezer for a few weeks to make sure no bugs survive in them and then they can store in the cabinet till use. (One of the easiest ways I've found to use dry beans is to simply throw them in the crock pot with plenty of water overnight, not bothering with separate soaking and then cooking, then adding any seasoning or other ingredients we see fit or even re-frying them for Mexican meals.)

So what types of things would you want to have put by if the collapse of civilization happens?

Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx