If you are living and eating in tune with the seasons, you will notice a change in the foods available locally at different times of the year. Yet, by eating purely seasonal produce you could find yourself with a vitamin deficiency in the cold dark days of winter, which a supply of stored summer crops can help to remedy.

Besides, there comes a time in the depths of winter when all you really want is a tasty fruit pudding or tomato sauce with pasta. To achieve this, you need to look ahead in summer and early autumn, and store your produce when it is ripe. Get the technique right, too, so that you don’t end up with a jar of inedible mould.

Pickling and making chutney can actually improve the taste of your produce, as well as preserving it. The processes rely on preserving food in vinegar and flavouring it with spices and other ingredients. Both are delicious with cold meats, cheese, and curries.

Making jams and jellies is a great way to preserve all those fruits that grow in excess during the summer and early autumn. Drying is the oldest method of preserving produce, and also one of the cheapest and simplest. We frequently dry herbs, tomatoes, seeds, chilies, salamis, and hams, and have built a solar dryer.

Curing is a preserving technique that is normally reserved for meat and fish. It usually involves using large amounts of salt to draw the moisture out of meat or fish and so make it inhospitable to harmful microorganisms.

Hot and cold smoking are methods to preserve food, but are more reliable if you cure or dry it first. Today, smoking is primarily used for flavouring, rather than as a preserving technique. Having said that, if you smoke something for long enough, it will also dry out enough for storage.

Freezing allows you to store a wide selection of meats, fish, fruits, and vegetables. We also often freeze soups and le over meals once they have cooled down. The benefit of freezing fruit and vegetables is that most of the vitamins and goodness is retained, but the drawback is that the texture of foods can be lost. Make sure you label and date your bags and containers, and that you organise your freezer well, with the newest produce at the back, or you will end up losing last year’s frozen peas until the next ice age.

Fermenting not only preserves fruit and vegetables for several months, but also gives complex and unique flavours to your produce. Some of our favourite ferments are sauerkraut, kimchi, and cucumber pickles, but we also love to ferment our root vegetables and garlic to make the most of bumper crops.