To ask if you ever put stuff in the garden overnight in winter when your fridge is full?

[Owlsintowels]

I do this occasionally, it feels elicit and wrong but logically I think it's fine?

Eg last night. Made a big pot of curry for friends visiting this weekend. Finished cooking at 9.30pm.

I could either put this steaming cauldron in the fridge, put it in numerous sinkfuls of cold water until the core reached something cool, or pop it on the patio in the back garden where the temp was about the same as a fridge, and the supply of extra cold is near infinite.

If I hadn't been going to bed early then I might have brought it in at 11 to move to the fridge, but as it is I left it out overnight

At 7am the temp was ~4.5, that's within the normal range for a fridge, so scientifically I don't see how this could be bad.

Does anyone else do this?

We don't get foxes and it was a big heavy lidded pot, so no wildlife concerns.

AIBU?

I have done. I also get Ocado to decant into the boot of the car if my fridge is full, which my mum thinks is weird, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses the car as a fridge!

I always use our patio as an extra fridge in Winter especially for busy times like Christmas and when we are having guests over.i also use it as a fridge for anything cooked in my cast iron pots if the fridge is full.Do have to watch out when temps drop considerably and are in the minus range because then beer bottles etc burst .We do not have any foxes.

Yes, to beer, wine and anything in a really thick plastic storage box. But we'd usually put it in the car. Otherwise:

The foxes would literally turn up with cutlery, napkins and a nice bottle of wine. If the local cats didn't get there first.

Beer yes, anything else no. Too much wildlife to feast on it.

All the time. Especially if I’m cooking a big meal. Though often it has to be the garage and not outside because outside where i live it would freeze solid.

As long as it's secure from wildlife (I use picnic coolboxes) the windowsills just outside the kitchen do just fine; like everybody else, I generally use the fridge for a lot of stuff that really only needs a cool larder.
At the risk of sounding like the "four northeners" sketch, I fondly remember in my 50's childhood the year we finally got a small fridge as the year the jellies at my birthday tea were solid! The coolest spot Mum had was "kitchen windowsill and fingers crossed", and my birthday is in July...…
I am inspired by the car boot tip; hadn't thought of that one!

I don't have an immediate garden that I can just open the door to, but when I defrost and clean out the fridge/freezer, I pile the contents into a heavy duty plastic box with a lid, and/or supermarket thermal bags and leave it all on the communal roof garden.

I've left it for several hours and it's still all been frozen.

I once stored the turkey in my Mum's car boot.

I remember the feeling of utter devastation as she drove 200 miles home!

We had both forgotten it and this was before the days of mobile phones so nothing at all I could do. We had gammon on Christmas Day

Yes have done this.

But if it had been last night here, would of been near frozen. It was -2 over night and a white frost this morning.

Although the foxes would of had it here.
We do it mostly with milk / drinks at Christmas

and often leave large batch cooking out until it's cool, sometimes overnight. Has to be in a well covered pot, or shut in the (cold) oven or microwave - wildlife to be concerned about indoors is my cat.

I did manage to put something in the oven the other week, forgot about it the next day.
Put the oven on to heat up, opened it to find melted container plus food I'd cooked the day before. I still keep finding bits of melted blue plastic.

I put drinks and chocolate in the shed if can't find any room inside.

At -4 I don't think you'll have to worry about insects. We once took my mum home on boxing day to find her fridge had died over the holiday.(pewee!) Luckily there was a foot of snow, so all her replacement food went outside till the new one came.we put meat and stuff in a big Tupperware box.

Of course!
Anything that I can deal well though.
Any stew or soup that I cook and it is too hot for the fridge.
I am very outdoorsy since makes perfect sense.

So not since

I must admit that I do often put bottles of juice into a bag for life with another bag over the top of it in the back garden to keep it cold! I'm in the north of Scotland so the temperature here is quite low (all the time) but in the winter it's usually between 1 and 5 through the day and minus something at night. So yeah, if the temperature outside is below about 7 (5 ideally), using outdoors as a fridge is a good shout. Using your car boot is also an option

I am pretty sure the OP meant approx. 4.5°C and not minus 4.5!
I leave stuff in the garage, but usually just drinks and sometimes veg

I grew up poor and remember not having a fridge. Anything can be put into UK gardens in the winter if the temp is below 5 and last as long as it would in the fridge provided you store it properly sealed (and put some shade on it) so animals / insects can’t get in. We used to keep stuff on top of milk crates. Home made Yoghurt, Cheese, milk, home made curries, eggs, rice, raw veg etc.

This is genius, I've never thought of this! Only thing is my cat eould rip things open but a box would fix that.

Not a hope. My garden is on the pavement and I attract cats as it is without supplying them a buffet. Plus it would be nicked within minutes

Drinks and fruit and veg

my kitchen is so cold I'd probably have left it out on the hob!

But yes we have a sliding scale of cold places for excess fridge stuff

Back porch even colder than the kitchen
Tub of water in the garden by the back door for booze, or garden table for covered pots/bowls
Wash house...old set of kitchen drawers out there, or on top of the freezer

It probably is fine with a lid, but I’d be more inclined to use the garage (or we have a bit of a lean to thing) than the patio itself. Wildlife (foxes, rats, cats) would be my main concern

I have frequently done this.
A big pot if hot food, turn the lid upside down and weigh down wit a brick.
Now I have a garage - access from within my house. Unheated and very cold- I often store food in there in the winter months. Keeps drinks nice and cold too.

I grew up using the coal bunker as a fridge for most of winter. So it seems really normal to me.

I have a reasonable cool box and a couple of cooler bags. With a some ice blocks (prefrozen) or just ice cubes (messier), they can do a good job as extra cold space over Christmas.