What to put up each month

In short

• The pantry comes in four waves: winter (pig, smoke, salt), spring (eggs, cheese), summer (preserves, fruit, grain), autumn (cellar, crock, maize, butter and lard).
• September is the busiest month. You can only lighten it by moving some work into August and October and finishing the shopping by July.
• For a family of 3.1 AE the pantry takes roughly 40–50 working days or afternoons a year, spread over 9 months.
• Some deadlines are hard: cabbage before hard frost, potatoes lifted dry, apples before frost, grain dry, meat cut only when cold.
• Months are for lowland UK and Ireland; on mild coasts harvests come 2–4 weeks earlier, in the uplands and Scotland 2–4 weeks later. In the US and Canada, go by your USDA zone.

What's inside

Chapters

1. The pantry year in four waves
2. Winter: December, January, February
3. Spring: March, April, May
4. Summer: June, July, August
5. September: the busiest month
6. October and November: cellar and crock
7. Deadlines you mustn't miss
8. Work schedule and batches
9. Coasts, uplands and North America
10. Buying before the season
11. Most common mistakes
12. Printable checklist

Worksheets

• Pantry calendar: plant foods
• Pantry calendar: animal products and grain
• Monthly work plan
• Working hours calculator
• Date calculator for the crock and grain
• Shopping plan by month
• Season log