Ebony's Pearls

Organizing your pantry is an essential part of having a viable permaculture kitchen.

Like permaculture, you'll want to zone it in layers that are organic and workable for you.

If you've been following my posts on creating a permaculture kitchen (which is an excellent idea whether we hit a depression, have a natural or man-made disaster, or you simply want to live a better life that's also more environmentally conscious), you will have already noted what foods you regularly eat, and what sits on your shelves until you throw it away years later. Now that you've gotten your food purchasing aligned with your actual eating habits and maybe changed your habits to reflect what you wanted as a diet, it's time to organize it so you can use your food in a logical, quick, and easy manner.

So, let's take a look at your food storage area.

Mine was once just a mere three shelves in an upper cabinet, plus the refrigerator and freezer compartment.

Now, that cabinet holds only my herbs, spices, cooking oils, and herbal medicinals

The rest of my food is organized by "zones" and the zones are placed where I can access them according to their frequency of use. The frequently used foods (Zone 2) are stored between waist and eye level, the heavy, bulky foods I use less often are placed between waist and floor level but not on the floor (Zone 1), small, less used items are placed above eye level (Zone 3). Those are the para-zones, within each of those zones are lesser zones.

Zone 1 is further broken down into named zones: Pet Zone, even though it's a daily used area, is in Zone 1 because the food is bulky and heavy, but it's placed up front where I can access it easily. The dry foods are stored in see-through bins (yes, plastic, but I intend for them to last decades) with scoops of the correct size in them. The litters are also stored in large bins near their food. The treats are also in see-through bins (glass, this time, since treats are smaller). I also keep extra food dishes, leashes, harnesses, and grooming supplies here in a baskets for each type of pet (we currently have cats, dogs, small rodents, hedgehogs, and ferrets) so I can grab them and use them when needed because the bathroom is too small to store these things. Also in Zone 1 are my bulk foods: flours, sugars, pastas, dried beans, and bulk cooking oils and fats (corn, safflower, and olive oils, lard, and vegetable shortening). Zone 1 contains the bottled water because it's heavy, bulky and easier to access when it's packed down low. I draw from this to fill the individual water bottles stored in the lunch section of Zone 2 and the reserve section of Zone 3 and refill these 5 gallon bottles as needed from the tap. Next, in Zone 1, I have my bulk root cellar vegetables/fruits: potatoes, carrots, onions, kohlrabi, cabbage, rutabagas, apples in roll-out bins because they require special packing inside the bins (mostly dirt or straw) to keep them fresh throughout the winter. The last thing I keep in Zone 1 are my brewing supplies and my fermenting foods and beverages (alegars, vinegars, meads, country wines, sauerkraut, and such before they get bottled and stored in Zone 3)

Zone 2 is the food we use daily. These are either packed in baskets according to recipes I use most or grouped together for ease in finding them. The breakfast section contains boxes of oatmeal, grits, malt-o-meal, cream of wheat and cream of rye, an undershelf basket to hold a selection of breads, bins of dried fruits, dolce spices in a small basket (cinnamon, clove cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, brown sugar, raw sugar), breakfast teas in a small basket with sweeteners and powdered creamers, pre-made pancake and waffle mixes (I make my own because store-bought ones contain soy), and syrups. Because I take my lunch to work and picnic a lot as well, I have a section of Zone 2 with lunchboxes and picnic baskets pre-packed and ready to go with eating essentials like cloth napkins, cutlery, portable seasonings, small cutting boards, small food containers (I prefer insulated thermos items and mason jars - half-pint and pint-sized works for most things), and non-perishable lunch foods (most of my lunches are perishable, so that section is rather bare). The dinners sections is separated into baskets by recipes: one basket contains all the non-perishable ingredients for spaghetti, another the non-perishable ingredients for lasagna, another for tuna casseroles, and so on. These baskets include seasonings for each recipe, teas, and cloth napkins. When I go to prepare those meals, everything's already in one basket and all I have to do is pull the basket and measure. When I run low, I pull from the reserves and buy more to refill the reserve stocks (those are in Zones 1 and 3). I bake a lot, so I keep a baking section with smaller bins of flours, sugars, cornstarch, baking soda and baking powder, food colorings, decorative sprinkles, dry yeast, small bottles of cooking oils, oils in hand-pump bottles for spritzing, water spritz bottles, cocoa powders, dried fruits, and baking spices. The cupcake, loaf and cake pans, cookie sheets, mixing bowls and utensils are also here for ease in pulling it all together. Because I entertain a lot, I also keep a basket of entertainment items handy: cloth napkins, placemats, fancy toothpicks, candleholders, candles, fancy cutlery and serving utensils, and convenience canned items for making quick appetizers and snacks.

Zone 3 holds everything else: canned goods sorted by groups, more bottled water in individual sizes instead of bulk, and all the reserve foods that would be rotated down into Zone 2. Since I do a lot of my own food preservation, Zone 3 contains my canning supplies. I can in small batches throughout the year, which is why these things are in Zone 3 and not Zone 4. Even though Zone 3 gets the smallest paragraph, it contains the most food.

My pantry also contains a Zone 4: appliances, large pots and roasting pans and bakeware I don't use often, specialty utensils hanging from hooks, and seasonal cookware (grilling utensils and racks, for instance).

My refrigerator and freezer are also zoned so I don't have to spend a lot of time standing there with the door open wasting energy looking for something I know is in there. I can open either one, reach in, grab what I want with the confidence that it will be right there and if I need to replace it, I can tell at a glance what needs to go on my shopping list.

My herb and spice cabinet is organized the same way. You'd think, with the seasonings pre-packed with all the dinner baskets and such, I wouldn't need a spice cabinet, but I do. My spice cabinet is a Zone 3 for my herbs and spices because they need to be stored differently from other foods - they need a cool dark place and my pantry is a set of shelves in a corner of the kitchen with a window in the middle.

Anyway, I keep the frequently used spices on the bottom shelf, the bulk herbs on the top shelf, and the medicinals on the middle shelf.

Even if you only have a small amount of food on hand, consider Zoning it for easy use.