Canning season is here. We have about 50 pounds of tomatoes we picked this week and another 20 or more that we froze over the last couple weeks. Going to do crushed tomatoes for this batch.

That's just the reds, yellow and purple are getting canned later as soup.

After last years debacle of not being able to find canning lids, we made sure to pick up extras when we found them. We're well set on jars and rings. Learned the hard way when we went to can green beans last year. Ended up freezing almost 200 pounds of beans, gave away at least 100.

Still going through the 20 pounds of jalapeños from a couple years ago, frozen they keep very well.

I wish you were my neighbors. With my diabetes the only fruit I can safely eat are tomatoes and I eat a lot of them!

Have you tried Black Krim? Very sweet when ripe.

Not to be a smart a$$ here, but, I don't understand canning.

While I've never sought out canning websites, I've seen a lot of posts over the years on different forums where people get all excited about canning or 'canning season'. If I had to guess, its probably in the 100's.

YET.....

I have not seen ONE post from someone all excited to open up and eat something they canned years earlier. NOT ONE.

Is canning much like sitting on a lake fishing? It's not the need but the moment?

What I have seen however are 'urban explorers' that explore long abandoned houses with canned goods still in the basement.

When all the shelves went bare last year people who canned had food to eat. It's a way of providing for yourself that doesn't require dependence on others.

You can can just about any food. Meat, fruits, veggies, soup, jams jellies, preserves, etc. Not much glamor in it, but a sense of satisfaction being able to provide for yourself. Much like the old saying about teaching a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Canning food for winter is a tradition in our family. Handed down from my grandparents who were born in early 1900 to my parents to us. I can assure anyone that we do eat well in the winter and as mentioned we don't depend on anyone. I think it will be a rough winter here in the Midwest and we will be prepared for it.

What it is. You take and boil lids rings and hers so noting lives to grow in the jar to make the food go bad aand make you sick.
You cut up and put food in jars with lids but rings loose. Then drop the jars in a pot with basket into a hot water bath. Pull basket. Place
Jars with rings loose on counter when they cool they create a vacume as thet cool. The seals the jars.
You can even take the rings off or leave on then tighten.
What you now have is home made caned food like metal cans you buy at the food store.
Or pickled foods. Pickled string beans, okra, cucumbers, eggs, etc take ya pick.
I think the French 1st did it to make food for Napoleon's troops. Guess they had the 1st MRE

Folks have different reasons for canning. Some out of necessity, some as hobby. I have some favorite recipes that are a pain to prepare so I make big batches and can it for later use. And there's some stuff you simply can't buy in a store.

Having a garden means sometimes you get big batches of whatever grew best that season. Last year we had 300 pounds of green beans and enough pickles to can 50 quarts. The year before I had 50 pounds of beets and enough cabbage to make 20 quarts of sourkraut.

Generally, home canning is good for 12 to 18 months. Plenty of stuff will keep longer without making you ill, but the flavor will be yuck.

Update, when I started this thread I was looking only at the maters we already had on the table, didn't think about what was still on the vine.

Gotta pick this morning, looks like maybe another 20 pounds. That would almost finish off the first planting, the second planting is going to hit in a couple weeks and they look like they're going to hit all at once.

Going to do banana peppers too today.

Cool!!!


This year my tomatoes didn't do worth a crap, I didn't get very many.
It's just a small 8' x 8' garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli and cauliflower in it.

The broccoli and cauliflower seem to be doing well, it's my first time trying to grow them.

The only thing that I ever seem to can are peach and plum preserves depending on what grow good each year.
This year it was plums.

We've got 8 red plum trees that are right at the point of starting to really produce fruit and one old one that has maybe a few more years before it's on it's last leg.

2 young peach trees that are just starting to produce fruit (3 or 4 years old) and one old one that's almost gone.

2 pear trees that are getting close to producing fruit,we get 1 or two pears on them a year so far (3 or 4 years old).

Hint on broccoli, pick it earlier than you like. It goes from prime to flower pretty quickly. If the buds start to turn yellow get em now.

My tomato were struggling until this week. Been too damp and fungus was getting to them bad. Heavy trimming and some dry weather did wonders for them.

Cucumbers will spread or you can run them up a trellis which is what I do to save space.

My cabbage got to damp too long, lost all but 2 heads.

End results for the day, 3 quarts of banana peppers, 15 quarts of crushed tomatoes, 3 gallon bags of yellow tomato frozen, 1 gallon of grape tomatoes bagged and frozen, and about 15 pounds of grape and romas that need a few more days to ripen that will become Pico.

I think I want to get into canning...not a crazy amount, but it seems smart. We have a small garden and I have the room. I guess I'm getting old.

Mopars and Canning, yeah!

-Dan

Our garden didn't do well at all this year but we went almost 2 months without rain. My peach trees had a boat load of fruit on them, so much that it broke 2 branches on 2 trees from the weight, but they didn't have any flavor. Probably because of the lack of water. We still have some stuff growing but we are probably about 4 weeks away from the first frost.