August 16, 2009: Canning to Date

Reader Eric McC. asked if I'd blog about what I have canned so far. Here ya go, Eric!



There are only two jars of pickled beets left, but we've eaten a lot and given some to the kids, 2 jars of crushed tomatoes, 12 tomato sauce, 4 pasta sauce, 5 chili base, 5 ketchup, 11 salsa, 5 sweet chili sauce.......


Beginning with the tall jar at the upper left, 13 more jars of sweet chili sauce, 7 pizza sauce, 6 pasta sauce, 1 more sweet chili sauce, 18 jars of two different recipes bread & butter pickles (one with onions, one without)............


Thirteen jars of sweet relish and 5 of dill relish, 9 hot pepper jelly, 7 strawberry jam and 8 peach jam from my neighbor's peaches.


I can't get quite far enough away to get it all in one picture.


So I stood on a stool and took the photo at an angle.


There are 133 jars of food here, and we've eaten or given away at least a dozen jars....maybe more.

When my five children were at home, I would can hundreds of quarts of food, so this doesn't seem like a lot. However, for a garden the size of mine I think it's pretty good. I wasn't buying any fruit or vegetables, and there are only two of us to feed.

Now I have to figure out where to store it all.

18 comments:

  1. That is a superior canning effort for the season and really speaks to what a great production level your garden is providing.

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  2. Thank you KitsapFG. I think the garden is slowing a bit now. I'm hoping so, I need a little rest from it.

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  3. Holy Moly! For comparison's sake, I can't harvest enough tomatoes to do even a small batch of sauce....how many tomato plants do you have this year?

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  4. Fantastic!!!!!

    Granny, I am duly inspired... now turn red my tomatoes... let's get on with it!!!

    I dream of having my pantry filled with preserved garden yummies!!! I'm working towards it anyway...

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  5. Kelly, Too many! I think I have/had around 27 plants, but I've recently removed 7 of them, and 2 are volunteers that haven't ripened fruit yet, and another two are awful tasting cherry tomatoes that are being pulled this week. Another four are just giving us enough for fresh eating. I'd say most of the tomatoes I've canned are from about 12 plants.

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    Toni, yours are getting ripe now, soon you'll have your kitchen counters full!

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  6. Wow those are 12 very productive plants.

    You need a pretty shelving unit where you can see all the pretty colors. Then again it is probably better for the jars to be in the dark.

    I've canned a total of six pints of pickled peas. I've made some sauce from mixed tomatoes from the garden, but since most of the tomatoes that I get are gold and low acid, I didn't can them. I'd be afraid to. I froze them instead.

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  7. Daphne, I always add 1 Tbsp. bottled lemon juice for each pint (2 Tbsp per quart) when I can tomato products, which gives the correct acidity. Sometimes I add a half tsp. of sugar to cover the taste.

    We had a few cool days, and the tomato production really slowed down. Now we're heading back up near 100 again toward the end of the week.

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  8. Look at all those jars! Canning really is an art and you certainly excel at time. Nice work.

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  9. Granny, at first I wanted to laugh that I can't believe all those jars, but then my 6 year old standing behind me reminded me that I have 122 bottles of homebrew in the closet LOL!!!!

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  10. Dan and Erin, son John just came by and left with a jar of each thing I've canned, a bag of fresh tomatoes and all my jalapeno peppers! Today I canned three quarts of dill pickles to add to the hoard.

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  11. that certainly is a LOT of jars!! i used to can much more than i do now.. i'm fortunate that one of my children has learned the art of canning, but unfortunately she's afraid of my old pressure canner.. one day i'm going to be her one with a 'gauge' ( new technology ya know!! ) i'm loving reading your blog... cheers

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  12. Roasted Garlicious, if I had a pressure canner I'd really be busy!

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  13. oh yes!! one of my prize possessions! I've not used it yet this canning season, but soon i'm sure! It's the best for poultry and meat broths that i make.. If i'm lucky enough to get some salmon.. ohhh yum!!!
    i love the size of your garden!! mine is small as i'm the main tender and usually a shortage of water, but i managed to get quite a bit out of it this year...

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  14. Roasted Garlicious, mine is sometimes a bit much, because I'm the only one who tends to it! Once in a while my grandson comes to visit and I get a bit of work out of him, but 99.9% of the work is done by me. At least I never have a shortage of water, as we are in an irrigation district. We pay for the water whether we use it or not, so I use what I need.

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  15. Wowie!! I just went down and sorted/organized my jars, but it pales in comparison to your (very neat) set up. I'm more impressed that you did more when you had more children around. I've got to get moving if I'm going to use you as inspiration.

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  16. Stefaneener, I had to take all my jars off the shelf and put them on the counter to take a picture for the blog, which also gave me a chance to take inventory. Then I had to put them all back, but Mr. H helped.

    When I had five kids at home, and a big (I mean BIG) garden, I'd buy fruit by the boxes full to can and fill two freezers with the veggies. I had a diabetic son, so it was almost a necessity to can my own foods to make sure the were sugar free. But my children were spaced far enough apart that I always had at least one old enough to help with the younger ones.

    I laugh now to remember buying asparagus forty pounds at a time and running it through the delicate cycle of the washer to get all the dirt and sand out of it! It works! (Note: I'd run a rinse cycle of Purex water first to sanitize the tub)

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  17. Wow! That is amazingly prolific! If only my tiny garden would produce such an excess... I need more land! (Or maybe I need to snack less off the vine - lol)

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  18. Jenn, I hope next year those jars will all be filled with strawberry and raspberry jam. Well, maybe not ALL of them :-)

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