What are you canning now?

[bobm]

Four quarts of peaches in the freezer. Not much, I know, but it's the most that tree has ever produced and they were really pretty. Considering that a quart of peaches of similar size and type were $6 a qt. at the local farmer's market...and those were whole peaches, not cleaned and cut up, I feel pretty rich. According to those prices, those 4 qt. of peaches represented about $65 worth of peaches.

Bee, out of curiousity, what were all true costs ( including labor ) involved in producing the 6 quarts of peaches ?

 

[ducks4you]

Cherries, total, so far...16 quarts. I still have 2-3x as much frozen from this year's harvest. I'll get to them later.

 

[ducks4you]

Bee, out of curiousity, what were all true costs ( including labor ) involved in producing the 6 quarts of peaches ?

I canned 5 1/2 quarts of peaches last week. Since they were shipped to me, it was about 25 pounds of peaches before processing. It is labor intensive. You have to blanch in boiling water to get the skins off, then cut, then either cook in the sugar sauce or fill jars and pour the sauce over them, then hot water bath for 35-45 minutes. It took me 3 hours to do mine. Does that help?

 

[Nyboy]

What would happen if you left skins on

 

[ninnymary]

I stopped blanching years ago. Too much of a pain. Now I just peel and slice. I can do that much faster.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, out of curiousity, what were all true costs ( including labor ) involved in producing the 6 quarts of peaches ?

Well...spent about half hour pruning trees last year, a few minutes shoveling wood chips, manure and emptying bags of leaves under the trees. All of 15 min or less picking the fruit. No actual costs involved except a little time and that has no monetary value where I live.

I don't blanch either...just sat and peeled and cut up the peaches while talking to family, added some sugar and let them sit a bit to make a syrup, shoved them in qt bags and into the freezer.

I don't call these things labor and they don't really have a cost to me....they are just me living the life I live. I'd no more put a cost on putting up peaches than I would in breathing each day, as both just come natural as part of my life.

 

[baymule]

I paid $35 for half a bushel of peaches. I canned some for winter cobblers and made jam with the rest.

 

[ninnymary]

Well...spent about half hour pruning trees last year, a few minutes shoveling wood chips, manure and emptying bags of leaves under the trees. All of 15 min or less picking the fruit. No actual costs involved except a little time and that has no monetary value where I live.

I don't blanch either...just sat and peeled and cut up the peaches while talking to family, added some sugar and let them sit a bit to make a syrup, shoved them in qt bags and into the freezer.

I don't call these things labor and they don't really have a cost to me....they are just me living the life I live. I'd no more put a cost on putting up peaches than I would in breathing each day, as both just come natural as part of my life.

Bee, I so agree with you. You can't put a money value on things we enjoy doing.

Mary

 

[digitS']

I don't peel tomatoes for tomato sauce to be cooked and go in freezer.

Just run the ripe tomatoes through the food processor before they go in the pot.

If anything, I like the sauce better this way. I'm very much looking forward to making pasta sauce in the fall. (There is another ripe Kimberley on the backyard plant .)

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

I wonder how much of a fruit or vegetables nutrients loss from peeling