I tend to grow a lot of what I eat myself. I do aeroponics, with specific crops staggered so that there’s a bit more than enough weekly/monthly. (Things like strawberries, are weekly. Things like potatoes monthly.) I started out with a living wall in an apartment and kinda turned into a plant dad.

-freezing (fruit, carrots, beans,herbs.) sometimes it changed their textures, but there flavor remains good, and you won’t notice in cooked food. Good, imo, for a few months. You do have to wash and blanch things,

-canning (berries- as a jam- tomatoes, string beans,)- obviously changed their textures as it generally involves some form of cooking (tomatoes for example are sealed in a mason jar using a pressure cooker.) they last the longest.

-pickling. It’s not just for cucumbers (“pickles”). You can can them for longer, but pickled things last a few weeks. Red onion pickled with garlic cloves and one of a variety of peppers is amazing. (Particularly replacing sauerkraut on Reuben’s)

-drying. You can dry most things, in a dehydrator, and vacuum pack it and reconstitute it by adding water back to it- just measure before and after to know how much. Vacuum bagging after will let things go for months. (Also consider prepping ‘camp food’ this way. Keep some on hand for easy meals and rotate stock… or if shit hits the fan.)

Curing- this is usually reserved for meats (jerky, ham, etc)

Fruit: dehydrate, freeze, or alcoholic fermentantion. Some fruit have special methods, like sulphured apples or bletted medlars.

Vegetables: easiest thing is to pack in brine of 3Tbl per Qt, leave at room temperature or a little cooler for a week before eating. I alway throw in some onion and garlic because I like it that way. Lasts like 6 months at room temperature. Most vegetables have additional special traditional preservation methods, but that fermented pickle in brine works for pretty much all of them.

If you want to be more specific with which foods you need to preserve, I can provide more options.

I’m writing a book on food preservation, ama.

Prolly not exactly what you’re looking for but an option nonetheless: make jam. The sugar helps preserve, plus put it in jars and put the jar in the fridge, lasts a long time

Planning. I buy what I know I will eat within the week. And if it goes bad before that/i end up not eating it, it goes into my compost pile.

One option is to pickle them. Even without canning them, which is a whole process to itself, you can put pretty much any vegetables in water, salt, and vinegar and they’ll preserve in the fridge for much longer.

Just search whatever vegetable you have plus “pickled” and you’ll find recipes.

Freeze if you can. I should point out though that if your things seem to be rotting at much higher rates than you would expect, then there might be something else that’s molding, and that thing might be spreading the mold spores onto your vegetables. I would suggest checking all the contents of your fridge for mold if that’s the case

Freezing is my go to or just putting in some air-right container to make it last a little bit longer.

I make sauerkraut when I have excess cabbage. It lasts for aaaaages and is so easy to make.

I hear the way they preserve apples and other fruits for months is to store them in a special refrigerator with all the oxygen pumped out, only nitrogen gas I believe.

How are you storing your veggies? Some fruits and vegetables emit ethylene gas which promotes ripening in many fruits and veggies. Things like storing bananas with apples will cause both to turn rotten faster. Also storing fruits in bags that don’t allow the ethylene to escape will cause your veggies to rot faster.

You could always make preserves.

I’ll show myself out