44 Grow It, Preserve It, EAT IT! | What We Realized While Cleaning Our Deep Freezer

We cleaned out our freezers expecting to make a little more room. Instead, we discovered just how much food we had actually grown, raised, harvested, and preserved over the past year. In this episode of *Handmade Happiness*, Jessica and Thomas talk about what happened when we pulled everything out of our very full homestead freezers and realized we had bags of homegrown squash, berries, greens, eggplant, pumpkin, peaches, cherries, home-raised meat, and more tucked away inside. It was encouraging to see how much food our garden and homestead had produced, but it also taught us an important lesson: There’s no point in growing and preserving all that food if we forget to eat it. We talk about the tendency to save homegrown food because it feels too special to use, only to risk letting it sit so long that it eventually goes to waste. Instead, we're learning to embrace seasonal eating: enjoy foods abundantly while they're in season, preserve what we can't eat fresh, and then actually use what we've put away. In this episode, we talk about: - Cleaning out and organizing our homestead freezers - Realizing how much food our garden actually produced - Freezing, canning, and preserving the summer harvest - Why we're creating a freezer and pantry inventory - Meal planning around the food we already have - Why you shouldn't “save” your homegrown food forever - Eating with the seasons instead of expecting every food year-round - Making better use of home-raised chicken, duck, and other meats - Reducing food waste on the homestead - What we're learning about preserving food in ways we'll actually use - Using this year's harvest to decide what we should grow next year - The garden varieties we loved—and a few we probably won't grow again One of our biggest takeaways from this growing season is that success isn't just about how much food you grow. It's about how much of that food your family actually uses and enjoys. We're learning to grow what we love, preserve it in practical ways, keep track of what we have, eat it while we have it, and trust that another season and another harvest will come around again. If you're growing a garden, raising your own meat, preserving food, stocking a homestead pantry, or simply trying to make better use of the food you already have, we hope this conversation encourages you to take inventory and use what you have. Subscribe to *Handmade Happiness* for more conversations about homesteading, gardening, cooking from scratch, food preservation, homeschooling, handmade skills, and building a more intentional life. ✨ Thanks for tuning in to *Handmade Happiness*! ✨ If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations about slowing down, creating with your hands, and living more intentionally. 💌 Stay connected: - Visit me at TheLarkLife.com - Follow along on Instagram: @The\_Lark\_Life - Click to join my email list for updates, resources, and encouragement 🧵 Share the love:  If this episode encouraged you, would you take a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend? It truly helps others discover the show. You can also support the show by making a donation at www.thelarklife.com/podcast Until next time, may you find joy in the simple things and beauty in the work of your hands.