This didn’t become a need until recently when I started canning. And canning full time. We’ve slowly transitioned over the last year from eating out to canning our own home grown food or food that is discounted at the store. It has saved us major money, decreased our grocery bill by an extreme amount, and given us our health back. I could talk about the benefits of home canning and preserving food all day, but what we’re really here for is to learn how to store our home canned jars and food. I had a small cabinet we installed in our kitchen to hold my mason jars and any food that I had canned, but we quickly found out it was too small. And too hard to look into to find the food we needed. It had doors on it and it was really wide. So we needed a new storage solution, and quickly.

We took the kids to my aunts for the day, and spent 6 hours just cleaning out our basement. It went from not being able to even step into it, to looking like it was move in day as it was completely empty. And this is when we found the first shelf. It’s built into the rafters, so it’s very solid. It’s old, not quite the height I wanted, and very dirty, but I knew it would work just fine for a temporary canning shelf and storage solution for my home canned food. So I headed down with some washcloths and cleaner, and gave it a good wipe down. But I quickly filled this shelf too! And that’s when we realized, we would have to build something. We didn’t want to spend money on it, so we gathered all the scrap wood that had been in the basement, and came up with a design that would incorporate the measurements of wood we had.

This was our rough drawing. We knew we had enough for three shelves if we cut the wood in half. And the wood we had was strong, so it would be able to hold the weight of all the filled canning jars.

We laid out our shelf on the floor and screw it all together. I can’t tell you how many screws went into this shelf, but it was a lot. It was extremely heavy but perfect for storing jars. We probably could have added another shelf and still had room for the height of the jars. But we were doing this with scrap wood and didn’t have enough for more shelves. These are 12″ wide shelves and we only had 2 long leftover pieces from another project.

We moved the shelf downstairs to our cellar next to the existing shelf I was using for my canning jars. It was the perfect size and i quickly started grabbing jars to fill it up. Because the shelves were already stained, I decided to give the entire shelf a quick coat of stain for a cohesive look.

We will obviously need more space but the idea is to add on as we fill them. This way we’re not overwhelmed with the time it will take to build it all and can do small steps at a time. My dream is to eventually have the entire cellar lined with shelves for our pantry and jar storage. But since this was our first year with a garden and first year full time canning, we decided to take it slow.

I have canned everything from tomatoes, green beans, carrots, venison and jam to jalapeños and zucchini. I think the true learning curve to canning and preserving your food is figuring out how to prepare it. So much can be canned, but what will you truly eat?! I started paying attention to what we were eating most in our meals and purchasing at the grocer, and that’s what I learned how to can first.

Broth is one of the easiest foods to make and can and can be used for so much. It’s been years since we’ve actually had to buy broth at the store and I only use my scraps to make it with.

For storing your canned food, you want it to be cool and dry with minimal sunlight. Our basement is generally 10° cooler than the house being buried in the ground and surrounded by stones. It’s technically a cellar as we live in an 1800s farmhouse. The walls are waterproofed and a fan and dehumidifier are always running to make sure this area stays consistent. I did used to store my jars in a cupboard in my kitchen but that room gets hot with no central AC. So it was necessary to move it especially as my collection grew.

The idea behind canning storage is not to be pretty. It’s to use a space functionally to store your preserved food. While some may say mine is aesthetically pleasing, it’s not required. All you need are some basic shelves that can hold 2-3 jars deep. And if you are in an earthquake area, I would definitely add something to the front of your shelves to keep your canned jars from falling off.

Some of My Favorite Canning Recipes

How To – Pressure Canning Potatoes for Beginners

How to Preserve and Can Sweet Corn

Quickly Canning Carrots for Soups, Stews and Easy Meals