How To: Freezing Your Own Fruit

As your garden harvest is coming in - well, hopefully, anyways - you probably are ending up with more than you can eat right away. Freezing your extra fruit means you can have fruit from your garden even into January - and you know exactly where it came from. Choose fruit that is free from blemishes (save the others for canning), and try to keep from handling them too much since the more fruit is touched, the more likely it is to get bruised and brown. (Ick!)


Be sure to wash all fruit thoroughly! I place mine into a colander and use the spray nozzle on low for the more delicate fruits and stronger for fruits like apples.

For fruits like apples, peaches, pears, plums, and apricots, you'll want to remove the pits by carefully slicing them in half. Berries like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, you'll simply want to remove any stems and leaves.

To stop fruits such as apples or bananas from browning while you are getting ready to freeze them, you'll want to keep them fresh in a bowl of water that has about 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice, or if you're stuck - mild vinegar added. This is called "dipping". It also helps other fruits from sticking together once they are frozen, so get into the habit of doing it with all fresh fruit you are freezing. When you are ready to start freezing, drain them on a clean linen towel or paper towel to remove all the extra moisture.

If you go straight to tossing them into a plastic container for freezing at this point, you'll end up with a mushy mess. This is alright if you are just using them for smoothies I guess, but for nice looking fruit, you'll want to place them on a single layer on a baking sheet that has a lifted edge (otherwise they will slide right off!). Pop this into your freezer for an hour so they will be firm enough that they won't squash together. Then you'll simply add them into a freezer safe bag or container - and don't forget to write the date and variety on them too!