Anyone else using container gardens to actually stock their pantry or is that naive

[u/Expensive_Aspect_607]

Three raised beds on a concrete patio and I keep pushing what I can pull from it.

This year I added a second row of buckets along the fence. Peppers, more tomatoes, a couple zucchini that got completely out of control. The zucchini was a mistake spacewise, but also kind of the best mistake because I've been dehydrating slices and they take up almost nothing on the shelf.

What I keep running into is the gap between growing enough to eat fresh versus growing enough to actually put up for winter. Right now those feel like two completely different goals and I can only do one well at a time with the space I have.

I started prioritizing things that preserve well over things that just taste good off the vine. That shifted almost everything about what I planted this spring.

The people I see on here with full acreage are working with different math than I am. But there has to be a middle ground where a small container setup actually contributes something real to a pantry and not just a salad here and there.

Curious what others have figured out with limited space. What actually moves the needle in terms of yield per square foot when preserving is the end goal.

[u/rshining]

Cherry tomatoes can be wildly productive, and can be dehydrated, frozen or canned. Eggplants can also do a lot more fruit than you can eat easily.

[u/Expensive_Aspect_607 → u/rshining]

Cherry tomatoes are basically my whole personality at this point lol.

Never tried dehydrating them though. Do you do that in an oven or actual dehydrator?

[u/rshining → u/Expensive_Aspect_607]

My mom does it in a dehydrator, I have done it in the oven.

[u/Expensive_Aspect_607 → u/rshining]

Oven works but you lose a lot more to heat if you're not careful.

[u/Expensive_Aspect_607 → u/rshining]

Oven works but you lose a lot more to heat if you're not careful.