Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Oh, the bounty of Summer

I've been canning a good amount of fruit lately. Mostly in the form of jams and pie fillings. In the next two weeks, both blueberries and raspberries will be in season. I have several things planned for both those berries, but I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what else I'd like to can. I didn't can aspargus like I wanted to, and frankly I'm a bit scared of my dilly beans (as in eating them without dying).

I get that canning fresh fruit now, you have it (in some form at least) during the winter. Obviously veggies and things are more $$ during the winter, and usually have been shipped in somewhere. But not being a child of canning (aka, my family didn't can anything) I'm really on the fence about how much canning to try for my first year. Is canned corn from home really that different then from the store?

If you can produce, fruits or meat (or meals like soups even) what to you see as the pros? Cons?

2 comments:

  1. You might ask Guyk at "Charming, just charming." The man is a wizard at growing his own food and knows all about canning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The pro side of saving your produce in jars is it costs you the energy and time, if you grew it yourself. For example, we put up 12 quarts of dill pickles yesterday. It was about 10 or 11 pounds of cucumbers when we started. More cukes are on the way. We give a plenty away but can you imagine *eating* 10 pounds of cukes at one time?
    We will be putting up green beans soon. They are GREAT fresh but again, eat a bushel of green beans every day?

    The con side is it costs you for the energy to boil the water, the *additives* like salt or vinegar or spices, and most of all your time. I did the pickles with my 17 year old daughter so that time was very well spent.

    If you grow it, and like it I say go for it and *Jar it Up*!

    ReplyDelete

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