Top Preservation Tips for your Harvest - Keeping your food for a long time

With all of the work that we put into growing food in hydroponics, it makes sense that we want that produce to keep for a long time. Although beginners often focus on the actual growing cycle, practically, harvesting can be just as important. You want to preserve the value in what you've grown, and find new ways to use the products that you generated.

So how do you make the most of hydroponic harvests? These are some fairly common tips that are really useful in planning how you’ll store the fruits of your labor.

Containing and Wrapping

For a variety of greens, one of the biggest issues is fully drying the produce, then wrapping it well to protect it from airflow. A good drying or curing process goes a long way, and in combination with using the right storage containers to keep things airtight, your produce will last much longer.

Storage Environments

The storage environment also makes a huge difference. Experts always point out that you want dark, cool and dry places for stored produce, no matter what it is. Darkness protects the produce from the ravages of sunlight and UV rays. Room temperature or cool environments protect from heat that can accelerate decay processes. And dry storage environments protect items from molding or getting infiltrated by dampness or humidity.

Alternative Methods

You can also try several fundamentally different storage methods for produce that will make your food or other products keep much longer.

One traditional one is canning -- by sterilizing cans, filling them and sealing them, you’re sealing out bacteria and preventing it from getting back into the plant environment. Canned produce can keep for several years. Another strategy is drying. As mentioned above, drying protects plant matter from decay. Freezing is another possible method, although you have to think about how these food items will be re-hydrated or thawed.

These are some of the steps to ensuring that you get more out of each hydroponic harvest. These processes are important to help you make the most of the equipment and gear that you use to complete plant cycles. For much more, check out over 1500 pieces of equipment, and a lot of good advice, at Dealzer’s web site.