Plastic Pantry Shelving: A Great Choice For Canners

 

I you have a garden of any size, raise livestock on the homestead, or just like to buy a lot of stuff on sale for your pantry, you are eventually going to need some proper shelving. I realize that this is not the typical type of article I write here on CulinaryYou, but this is part and parcel to the 'minimalist pantry' series. One of the first things we started doing when we wanted to cut down on our food bill, was raise our own livestock (rabbits and chickens) for meat. In addition, we plant a pretty good size garden for the two of us. This spring alone we have harvested over 100lbs of tomatoes, and about 40lbs of cucumbers so far, in addition to about 40lbs of blackberries, yellow squash, green beans, and peppers; you get the idea.

Well I have always been a canner and if you have been reading any of my articles on this blog, then you know that I can a lot of vegetables (tomatoes, green beans, pinto beans, black-eyed peas, squash etc...) as well and meats, jellies, and jams. The great thing about canning your harvest is that is is shelf stable, so if the power ever goes out as a result of a natural disaster or we ever have our power cut off, we will always have food to eat. Are we preppers? No, we are homesteader's or farmer's which in many ways are the original preppers. We strive to be as self-sufficient as possible, however I still hold a full time job as a registered nurse, because farming just doesn't pay the bills...[GRIN].

Anyway, if you can as much as we do, and/or buy a couple of extra food items to stock your pantry at your local grocery store when things go on sale, you will eventually need more shelf space. Most shelves that you can buy for your pantry, simply are not pantry friendly. What I mean by that is there is a lot of wasted space between the shelves. Yes you can stack some canned goods, but stacking your home canned meats and veggies is not a viable option. So in this article, I am going to show you how to purchase inexpensive shelving units and convert them into the optimum canning shelf.

Plastic Shelving

We purchase 'Plano' brand (model 950500) plastic shelving from our local Walmart for $29.49. This five shelf unit is stackable and interlocking which can be a blessing or a curse. A blessing when assembled correctly on a flat, stable surface; but they can be a curse if you do not set them up correctly. I learned the hard way, but I am going to share my experiences with you so that you do not make the same mistakes that I originally did. Please, I beg you, learn from me, or you will regret it, mark my words.

Because we can meats and vegetables in both quart and pint jars, it was important that the size and height of the shelving met these specific needs. In order to do this we cut the legs of the shelves down to 11 inches. Then when assembled the actual space between the shelves is 9 inches (you lose two inches in height as the legs sit in a recess on the shelves). This is the prefect height for both quart and pint canning jars. There are two big advantages to cutting down the legs to 11 inches. The first is that it actually makes the shelves more stable, and the second and maybe the biggest advantage is that is allows you to place twice the usable shelf space in the same area.

Cutting The Legs

Essentially the legs that come with these shelves are 1 ½-inch thin wall plastic tubing. The are actually the same size as thin wall PVC of the same diameter. Because they are thin wall, they are difficult to cut with some types of PVC cutters as the cutters tend to squash the legs rather than cut them evenly. Now you could try and use a hacksaw to cut the legs, but if you do not cut them straight your are going to have a lot of problems as you begin to stack the shelves. Any small off-set will begin to become exaggerated (get worse) as the shelving gets taller. Take it from me you, you want your shelves to be as stable as possible.

I personally cut the legs of the shelves on my miter saw (aka chop saw). I measure 11 inches from the blade and place a stop block on my fence and hold it in place with a couple clamps. It makes repeating the same cut over and over go fast and keeps the cuts accurate. If you do not have the ability to use a stop block with you mitre saw, then measuring each leg and marking it will have to do. Just remember, measure twice and cut once.

So what happens if you screw it all up? No problem, just go down to your local hardware supply store and buy a 10 or 20 foot piece of thin wall PVC and cut it to any size you wish. It will not be as pretty as it will have writing on it, but who cares, we are taking shelving. However if you do not like the writing you could sand it off.

Putting It All Together

So I am going to tell you upfront, we live out in the country and we live in a 'double wide palace', that's a manufactured or mobile home if you didn't get my drift. Although it is a very nice one, it is still a manufactured home. Having said that I am not keen on screwing my shelves to the wall. If you live in a conventional home then I would suggest that you attach every other shelf to the studs in your wall (they come with pre-drilled holes). I especially recommend this if you have to place your shelving in a room that has carpet. I was unable to do so and paid the price. So best recommendations is place your shelving on a flat, hard, level surface and attach them to the wall and her follows the reason.

Builders Note: We always leave the legs on the first level there original length so that we can place larger totes on the bottom shelf that contains dry goods such as flour, sugar and other bulky supplies.

These shelving units lock together, this in turn makes them very sturdy and gives them strength. It also means that if one shelving unit fails, then all the interlocking shelving units fail. It is an all or nothing proposition. My point, my shelves were interlocked together (which I recommend) and then placed on a carpeted floor in our spare room we call the pantry. Because we live in a manufactured home, I was leery of attaching them to the wall. Well one of the shelving units was beginning to lean, and before I could get the situation rectified, it fell over taking all of the shelves with it. To say it was a mess was an understatement. This was not a fault of the shelves, rather a the fault of the user. The solution to the problem was quite simple. Because I did not want to attach the shelves to the wall and I have to place them on carpet, I placed a 1x4 board under the front edge of each shelf. This in turn give the shelves an ever so slightly unnoticeable lean towards the wall, problem solved. So if you have to place your shelves on carpet, this simple solution could save you from a massive headache.

Built To Last

These particular shelves are quite heavy duty with ribbing that runs underneath the shelf to give it both strength and stability. The box states that the 5 unit shelf can hold a total of 375lbs (75lbs per shelf). Unlike other shelves they do not bend or buckle under weight. In the picture below you will see that I have 20 quart jars of pasta sauce on one shelf (49.7lbs total weight) and the shelf is nice and straight. Because they are made of plastic they will last for a very long time if taken care of properly. Even when my shelves fell over, none of them sustained any damage.

Conclusion

So this is the simply shelving solution that we use on our small homestead to store or canned and purchased goods. They have really worked out well for us now that I added the small spacer board (1x4) under to front lip to give the shelves a slight lean towards the wall. At less than $30, they are fare cheaper than trying to buy and or build shelves from wood. The fact that they snap together easily is also a bonus. Best of all if you decide later that you want the shelves area taller, you can purchase inexpensive 1 ½-inch thin wall PVC from your local building supply and cut them to the size you desire.

If hope that you have found this information helpful. It was my goal with this article to not only show you how to add simple inexpensive shelving to your pantry, but to help you to avoid the mistakes that I made when I first started out. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and do not forget to send us a friend request on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+ to get notifications regarding our latest recipes and articles.