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By Heide Kennedy, Arizona Farm Bureau Communications Intern

If you grow a garden through the summer, you have firsthand experience that some of the best, most fresh fruits and vegetables can come out of it during the hottest months of the year. If only there was a way to enjoy that produce all year long without having to go through the long process of canning or picking! Well, you’re in luck, because with a few simple steps, you can prepare vegetables and freeze them, and then enjoy them all fall and winter long!

According to New York Times cooking columnist Melissa Clark, freezing is a great, easy way to preserve all your leftover summer produce, without compromising nutrition or taste! Frozen foods are a great alternative to their canned varieties. All you have to do is cook them down in a saucepan to condense down, blanch them, or roast them in the oven. Then, just let them cool, and put them in plastic storage containers and voila! You have delicious summer produce to use all year long in sauces, soups, pastas, and more!

Here are a couple summer fruits and vegetables that are great frozen and used later:

• Peaches
• Apricots
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Plums
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Summer squash
• Figs
• Okra
• Pears
• Peas
• Beans

Frozen fruits and vegetables are at their peak quality for about 8-12 months. They are still edible after that; they just won’t be as good as they were.

Each one of these vegetables grows well here in our hot Arizona summers! If you don’t grow them yourself already, pick some up from a local farmers market! You can enjoy some of them fresh, and then you can freeze the extras for later use!

For more articles, check out the Fill Your Plate blog!