Safety is of utmost importance. We started this season with rhubarb and broccoli, but have been in full-swing for several weeks with cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and others. As we get past this season, it will be time to start "putting-up" fish for the winter. Then it will be venison, and maybe some squirrel. That will probably lead to splitting a hog and a steer with friends. My poultry is safe for now, but I do like to pickle their eggs.
There are so many ways to preserve food I would suggest a heck of a lot of study if you are new at this. As a first step, maybe find an old codger like me who has been doing it for a number of decades without becoming dead from home-preserved foods. Search the Internet for the many great free publications by the USDA and the many state land-grant university Extension Services. Their guidelines are invaluable for safety, but yet easily achievable in today's world. I'd be wary of the many blogs out there, without first checking the USDA or Extension Service guidelines.
Just in the last several weeks and days we've started, or finished, many gallons of very low pH preserves, like sauerkraut, kosher-style garlic-dill cucumbers, relishes, and tomato sauce. Most have a safe and nutritious lifetime of about a year. Some, like my crock-style cucumbers -- maybe three months.
(Also - you can pickle/preserve summer squash and zucchini much like you use cucumbers.)
We've also flash frozen and vacuum packed a lot of things like broccoli and peppers.
Some things, like the many types of winter squash I grow, don't need anything but a cool place to be stored. I'm seriously thinking about digging a root cellar next time I get the backhoe out.
I just finished a delicious snack of smoked and pickled pig skin I removed from some brined/smoked hocks I put up last fall. The remaining brine will make a delicious batch of "pot liquor" using the last of last year's "bird egg" dried beans.
