Don’t’ you just hate it when you’ve bought a freezer load of fruits and vegetables and when you’re finally ready to eat them you find many of them rotten? What was green now has blue mould, and some black spots too, so the only thing left to do is throw them out.

Well, that doesn’t always have to be the case. Instead of having to devour all your fruits and vegetables as soon as you buy them, you can try to keep them fresh for whenever you’re ready to have them.

There are various ways to do this, but the most common preservation methods are: freezing, canning, drying, pickling and certain types of storage.

When freezing, it is advised that you blanch the vegetables then package them immediately to retain nutrients, flavour and texture. But try not to keep vegetables frozen for more than 8-12 weeks.

Canning is much more ambitious, but the extra effort will certainly pay off. According to about.com, canning is best for fruits and vegetables with high water content like tomatoes and peaches. You should also make sure that fruits and vegetables to be canned are cleaned properly and do not contain diseases. The canning container, lid and jar, should also be clean.

Drying fruits and vegetables in your kitchen oven is another way to keep them. Again, you must ensure they are clean and disease free. Fruits and vegetables must also be mature before drying.

Pickling is yet another way of keeping fruits and vegetables. Most pickling recipes call for using vinegar, but be sure to double check your recipe for the particular fruit/vegetable that you will be pickling. The ingredients used for preservation will determine its success. Apart from cucumber, apple and peppers are also great for pickling.

Finally, some storage techniques will preserve your precious fruits and vegetables. First, about.com advises, store only mature fruits and vegetables. Once they have bruises they should be eaten. So that means you need to look out for the bruises when shopping.  Best to store them in a cool dry place.

Unfortunately, storage will work only for a limited amount of vegetables, particularly tubers such as yam and cassava, those starchy root vegetables so popular in the Caribbean.