Are you hooked on canning too?

[brad]

Strangely, yes! I grew up on a large crop farm and we also had enormous gardens for our family's use, and being that I was the only male sibling I was tasked with a large portion of the garden work. When I moved out and left for college I swore I'd never set foot in a garden again.

To make a long story short: college, city life, marriage, kids, now outgrowing our current city house on postage stamp lot so we purchased land outside the city last year to build on, and we now have that enormous garden I use to hate so much. And I actually look forward to working it and canning the fruits of our labor. Apparently it is true that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.

So far we've canned some 50+ quarts of green beans and 10+ quarts of tomatoes, and the tomatoes *just* started coming in. We've frozen some peppers, but we've eaten all of the corn, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, peppers, watermelon, etc.

We've already started plans for doubling the size of next year's garden. I am also starting to see a little more of myself in my oldest son. Uh oh.

 

[popsgumdrop]

So far I have only gotten 5 jars of fig preserves. We've had so much rain that it seems to have ruined the reset of the fig harvest. (rotted one of my cantaloupe too! ) I've not had enough of anything ripen at that same time to can any of it, so we've been either freezing or eating it all. Trying to plant a big crop for a fall harvest though. Hopefully I'll be able to can peas, tomatoes, and beans, then pickle some cucumbers and peppers. We have very limited space for growing. Reading Square Foot Gardening now. Maybe that will help to maximize the space we have so we will get enough for canning.

 

[Veggie PAK]

Well it's nice to see that I'm not alone in the "I love canning" department! People think I went overboard on canning my stringless green beans as I have already canned 94 quarts of them. But break it down into usage: 1 quart a week means you need 52 quarts. We love the green beans, so with the 94 quarts, that's not even enough for two quarts a week usage. I don't consider that to be a "lot".

Sunsaver, I've been thinking that in the daytime, it would be good to have a solar attic gable vent fan for blowing on you or in or out a window. It seems that if they are good enough for an attic, we should be able to be functionally creative and use those gable fans in other applications too. It makes a big difference in comfort when you are in front of a fan that cools you off.

 

[Jared77]

Canning addict here.

I never had before this year and already after a few batches of pickles I'm already hooked. My wife did it growing up and always dreaded it. When we talked about the 2011 garden I told her I want to can and she reluctantly agreed. My wife gave me THE look when she saw that some of the cucumbers I planted were picklers not slicers since she said we didn't need anything more to can this year. So I made 2 quarts of pickles by myself since I got the look. She loves them but thought we'd have enough to do with all the maters we planted. I come home the other day and guess who picked another 4 quarts of pickling cucumbers and made pickles by herself? My wife. I came home from work glanced at the counter where the jars were cooling and then looked at her and she started laughing knowing full well she was busted!

We're patiently waiting for our maters to ripen so we can make salsa, soup and sauce.

 

[momofdrew]

I have been canning since the early 70's and love it... it is so satisfying to see rows of jars on the shelf and know where the produce came from...I have enough cucumbers picked that I can make bread and butter pickles tomorrow...

 

[Veggie PAK]

I just did a blog post showing what I've done to use some of my weekly harvest. I like canning because I don't have to worry about losing power with a freezer. Although I must admit, sometimes I do wish I had a nice freezer.

If you would like to check out what I do with my produce, have a look at my commercial-free-forever blog at:

http://www.backyardorganicvegetables.blogspot.com/

I do my blog to share with others and learn from them. SufficientSelf and TheEasyGarden are two wonderful sites for people to share information and experiences in an informal and friendly way as well. I'm so thankful that I found out about them! They really have a great group of friendly people using these two resources. My thanks go to whomever created them.

 

[momofdrew]

After church today DH and I put up dilly summer squash, zucchini relish, and bread and butter pickles...as well as seasoned bread crumbs and plain bread crumbs...(we know some one with a bread route and he gave us day old bread) I have been getting DH involved for the past few years...he really is enjoying it...every time we go by the kitchen we hear another POP ...so satisfying...

 

[Veggie PAK]

That's funny, but true! I too, love hearing the "pops"! It makes you go Ahhhh! Finished.

 

[yardfarmer]

DW and I canned alot of bread and butter pickles this weekend and finally used up the last of the metal ball and kerr lids we had stocked up over the past few years. For the last batch we used the reusable tattler lids and I gotta say I miss that "tink" when the lid seals...it is like the sound of success; it's all part of the process IMO.

One of the tattler lids failed to seal, the first failure of the year. DW is not that impressed with the tattlers, but at $2.99 for a box of metal wide mouth lids, I think we will get used to missing that sound of success.

 

[buckie52]

:My husband is driving me insane.i want my kitchen back.but boy it will taste good this winter.