At the beginning of this summer, my shelves were almost bare. There are a few jars on the top two shelves that are left over from last year...some pickles, apple pie filling, a few tomatoes, some relish and applesauce.
I'm thoroughly enjoying my small garden this year, but I'm still finding things to can. I bought several baskets of tomatoes for salsa and plain canned tomatoes, my sister gave me some peaches, Jim's cousin has a couple of pear trees that gave more than she needed, and a neighbor also had some extra tomatoes that she didn't want to go to waste.
All of my cucumber plants died, so I didn't make any more pickles this year, but our raspberry bushes are out doing themselves, so I've made several batches of jelly with plans for more. The jars in the front are sour cherry jam, made with cherries from Jenna's violin teacher's tree. I picked them while Jenna had her lesson...
The fun thing about preserving is not only seeing how the shelves fill up, although that's fun...but remembering where everything came from! In years past, most of it came from my garden, but I'm finding it just as rewarding to do it this way...
...and I'm thankful for my friends who have shared in their abundance!
