Canning Update...

My garden is tiny this year.  In fact, so tiny that I'm sure the local tour guides who pass by in cars with tourists, use it as yet another way to distinguish an "English" garden from an "Amish" one.  Years ago when my garden was big (by my standards) it was regarded as small by said local tour guides, so I can't imagine how it's regarded now!  (yes, it ticked me off a little bit when I found out, can you tell?!  :)  Oh well...)

It's also very overgrown with grass right now, and I will be the first to admit that an Amish garden would NOT look like mine in this regard.  In my defense, the 10" + of rain that we had in the past month did nothing to help with weed control!

Regardless...I'm happy with the results of my canning efforts this summer!

First came the pickles... 

I only got two batches of banana pickles processed before my cucumber plants wilted, but these will hold us over for a while!  The  pear butter on the top shelf is from last fall...

Next came jellies...

Raspberry jelly, blackberry jelly and white grape jelly.  I like to give these as gifts, and we'll still have plenty leftover for ourselves...

Then came tomatoes...

I have four tomato plants this year, and they were doing great until the monsoon season hit.  Now they're suffering from blight, although there are still enough tomatoes out there for a small batch of sauce now and then. 

I made two batches of salsa so far this year...eleven jars each, and I still hae several jars left from last year.  I'd like to do another batch if I get enough tomatoes at once, because I like to gift these jars as well.  We eat a lot of salsa ourselves, so I want to have plenty!

This year's salsa is on the top shelf, the second shelf is several batches each of pasta and pizza sauce.  I use Mrs. Wage's mix for those sauces.  It's quick, easy, and we like the flavor!  My go to Sunday lunch lately has been french bread pizza.  Just slice a loaf of french bread horizontally, spread some sauce, cheese and toppings of your choice, bake it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 400*, and you have a quick lunch!  Bake it on a stone, and the bottom even gets a little crispy.  Mmmm...

Our white grape vine overachieved this year, and I got what I feel like is a huge amount of grape juice on top of the jelly that I made!  I have sixteen quarts of juice on the bottom shelf that I made "the old way", and twelve quarts of juice concentrate on the middle shelf that I made using my friend's steamer.  THAT, friends, is a nifty way to make grape juice! 

The other things on the shelves are things from last year that I need to use up!  I don't have any canned beans, and that disappoints me, but it's my own fault!  We won't be starving anyway this winter, that's for sure!

What kind of canning/preserving do you do?

2015 Canning...

It feels so good to be filling up my canning shelves again!

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!