A workshop for Edmonton gardeners who want to stop losing their harvest and start building a pantry that feeds them through winter.

Register here for this event hosted and facilitated by Operation Fruit Rescue

Harvest is not a single event at the end of summer. It begins the moment the first greens come up in May and continues through October. Every week something is ready, and every week there is a choice: eat it now, give it away, or preserve it for later.

Most of it gets eaten or given away. The rest goes soft in the fridge, gets left too long on the plant, or ends up in the compost.

This introductory seminar is about changing that.

Cindy Suelzle has spent decades growing food in Edmonton’s short season and working through exactly this problem. In her kitchen, summer smells like berry jam and September smells like drying herbs and apple juice. She has tried most methods, abandoned a few, and landed on practical approaches that work in a Zone 3 climate with a normal kitchen and a normal budget.

In this session, Cindy walks through the main methods for preserving food, the shelf life and nutritional trade-offs of each, and how to match the method to what you grow.

She covers common mistakes, food safety basics you need to know (including when and why to use a pressure canner), and the one principle that determines whether preserved food actually gets eaten or quietly expires on a shelf.

This is not a single-skill class. It is an overview of all methods.

Whether you are new to food preservation or already canning and fermenting but want to fill in the gaps, this seminar gives you a complete picture of what is worth preserving, how, and for how long.

For hands-on skill building, explore Cindy’s canning, fermentation, and jam making workshops at OFRE.

What you’ll learn in this food preservation seminar

• The preservation methods and when to use each. Cold storage, freezing, refrigeration, canning, dehydrating, fermenting, pickling, and freeze drying each work better for some foods than others. You’ll learn which method suits what you grow and why.
• Shelf life and nutrition for each method Frozen fruits and vegetables hold about 60% of their nutritional value but only for between 4 and 12 months. Dehydrated fruits store well for up to a year under the right conditions. Canned food is best used within two years. You’ll leave with clear, realistic expectations.
• Food safety: water bath canning vs. pressure canning Low-acid foods require a pressure canner. High-acid foods do not. Cindy covers the science behind this distinction, including botulism risks, so you preserve safely and with confidence.
• Harvest timing and the “clock is ticking” principle All produce begins deteriorating within the first hour of harvest. You’ll learn how to build preservation into your harvesting rhythm so nothing sits too long before it’s processed.
• How to build a pantry you will actually use Store what you eat. Eat what you store. Cindy covers rotation, labelling, storage conditions, and the single most common reason food preservation fails.
• Produce-specific guidance From apples and beans to tomatoes, berries, and cabbage, you’ll get practical notes on which preservation