This post is sponsored by the makers of Ball® home canning products.*

I plan my gardening around what our family can and likes to eat fresh + what I can preserve. Each year, each garden contains lessons, garden triumphs + failures. For me, food preservation comes in making the most of what is in abundance + allowing our family to eat locally, seasonally + healthy year round.

When I think of my great grandmothers, children at their aprons, baskets full of harvests from their gardens. Gardens grown in earnest and out of necessity. What was harvested + what came out of the garden would be put up and put away, long after a growing season ends, what is preserved is what you had. In many cases, it was a matter of survival.

My paternal great grandmother, Nan, was known for her gardens. She had fourteen children, my grandmother being the youngest of the bunch. Whenever we talk on the phone, I share the happenings of the garden, she remarks how much I remind her of her mother + her love of the garden. I never knew this woman, but when I’m in my garden I feel her in my bones. These are my roots. Food preservation is for resilience + connecting to our roots. What grows underfoot, how we nourish ourselves + our families, empowering ourselves to learn new skills and divest ourselves in our acts of resistance.

Today, most folks in the western world don’t rely solely on our pantry shelves as access to foodstuffs year round from around the globe in our markets. I’d say this is not the case in many places around the world.

In times of crisis + to reduce our emissions, it is my lifelong journey to learn how to grow and preserve food for our family. To shop as locally (within 100 miles) + regionally (within 500 miles) as possible. That is not always an option especially when trying to budget + save. Growing + preserving food at the height of summer, when abundance comes easy, is one way I can take action to reduce our impact. With each passing year, each season my capacity and ability grows.

Enter golden beets. I grew these golden beets from Seed Savers last year for the first time. I’d grown Detroit reds the year before. But to be honest, working with beets is not my favorite because a mess is sure to ensue. With golden beets, however you get the earthy goodness of this nutritious root without the mess. This is my second year making this Ball® Home Canning Pickled Beets. With the subtle spices of cloves, cinnamon, and onions, these are a savory treat right out of the jar and on salads. I finished off last years jars before snow even dusked the ground, so in my winter garden plans, I knew more golden beets were a must.

Pickled Golden Beets

makes about 4 Ball® wide mouth pint jars

ingredients

4 lb. (3-inch/7.5-cm- diameter) golden beets

2 ½ cups organic white vinegar (5% acidity)

1 ¼ cups water

1 ¼ cups  sugar

1 tsp. Ball® Salt for Pickling & Preserving

8 whole cloves

1 cinnamon stick

2 smaller onions, thinly sliced

Directions

Trim beets, leaving 1 inch of stem, and scrub. Bring beets to a boil in water to cover in a large saucepan; reduce heat, and simmer 25 to 30 minutes or until tender. Drain, rinse, and cool slightly. Trim off roots and stems; peel beets. Cut beets in half vertically; cut halves crosswise into ¼-inch thick slices to measure 6 cups.

Stir together vinegar and next 5 ingredients in a 6-qt. stainless steel or enameled Dutch oven. Bring mixture to a boil. Add beets and onion; reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove and discard spices.

Pack beets and onion into a hot jar with a slotted spoon, leaving ½-inch headspace. Ladle hot pickling liquid over beet mixture, leaving ½-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band, and adjust to fingertip-tight. Place jar in boiling-water canner. Repeat until all jars are filled.

Process jars 30 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Turn off heat; remove lid, and let jars stand 5 minutes. Remove jars and cool.

I like to add the beet greens to pestos, smoothies and sauté as a side dish. Have you grown beets? What’s in abundance in your garden that you can preserve through drying, freezing, canning? Do you want feel an ancestral connection when you preserve?

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post that is part of an ongoing partnership with the Fresh Preserving Division of Newell Brands. They have provided jars, equipment and monetary compensation. All thoughts and opinions expressed remain my own.