Fully Loaded
Above is the state of my canning shelves as of about two weeks ago. As you can tell, there isn't a lot of extra room on them and I still have more things I would like to preserve. I still have a good supply of pint jars and half pint jars that are in boxes for now until we free up some room by eating some of our stash.
I've canned about all the tomatoes I want to can for now though I may do one more batch of popular end products to give out over Christmas. We still have tons of tomatoes, not to far off from being literal, that are ripening or in the process of ripening. After the next picking, I'm going to be giving them away to whomever wants them, if I can. Tomatoes are pretty easy to find around town, but not in bulk quantity for canning which is my forte right now.
Still ripening on our tree are a bountiful supply of apples. We have lots of apple pie filling from last year's canning and so I think I'll try my hand at making apple jelly and giving the bulk of the apples away.
Most of the pint jars that are still unused are dedicated to this year's pear crop. On one of the farms is an old pear tree that is probably as old as me. I canned some pears about 7 or 8 years ago and they sat on my shelf uneaten for the longest time until my girls discovered them and wiped out all of them in six months. So I plan to can a lot more of them this fall when they are ripe.
Other than those things, our garden is winding down. We will probably still have a bunch of peppers to give away but all the other veggies are winding down with the exception of the tomatoes and the squash. We lost half the squash crop due to beetles but managed to save the other plants. We mostly planted those just for personal consumption. The beetles took out the left over Hubbard squash seeds we planted which is fine, because I still have three shelves full of canned Hubbard squash from last year to fill our pumpkin pie needs for the next few years.
Having all this will make it easier as we start to transition our garden to a new garden behind our house, yet to be tilled or have anything done to it. I still hope to do that yet this fall and start building up the soil with amendments next year. With fully stocked shelves, it buys us time.
Those are beautiful and bountiful canning shelves. How wonderful to have all that freshly preserved food!
ReplyDeleteIt is very wonderful!
DeleteSuch beautiful bounty! Congratulations on jobs well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteThat is a LOT of work right there, Ed.
ReplyDeleteWell to be fair, about two thirds of the left section and about half of the right section were there at the start of this season. But a fair amount of work did go into filling the rest up.
DeleteEd, is this about the time of year that your garden ends in general? Ours could easily go for another two months.
ReplyDeleteYes our summer garden is winding down though it will continue to produce tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and a few other things up until the first hard freeze which still could be more than a month away. We will mostly be giving the rest of what we pick away through various sources.
DeleteSoon I will be transitioning in fall preserves which consists of apples and pears.
I am impressed. Do your kids show any interest in preserving?
ReplyDeleteThe only interest they have shown is in eating the preserved foods. But when I was their age, I felt the same way. Maybe someday they will remember these days fondly and attempt to do some on their own.
DeleteWhat an awesome pantry full of canned food! I had a grandmother and an aunt that canned and always had a supply on hand. Great job.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me feel wealthy having full shelves of food.
DeleteThat is an impressive display.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteVery pretty shelves! You rock!
ReplyDeleteI wish they were all the same size and style but that is the problem with building what you need only to find out a few years later it wasn't enough.
Delete