Beans, beans, beans!! Then tomatoes...

Last night was a never-ending canning session... Yesterday, I picked about 50 to 60 pounds of Tenderette grean beans (a bush bean). Then, I snapped them... Then, I washed them... Next, I washed my jars and got my lids and rings ready to boil. I got my pressure canners ready. I got my other assorted stuff out and ready and got my huge water-bath canning pot filled with green beans and water to blanch the beans to prepare them to go in the jars. THEN, the real work began! LOL You can only run 7 jars at a time through the pressure canner and I could only use one canner for the first while till I had all the beans jarred and that took 3 big batches in the water-bath pot. When I finally got all the beans jarred, I started running both pressure canners, one batch after another.

Guess how many QUART jars I did between midnight last night and 7 am this morning????? 42! Forty-two jars of lovely, home-grown green beans! And, I fell into my bed just shy of 8 am this morning and slept fitfully till just about 1 pm today.

After I got up (because hubby kept calling and waking me up and I gave up on sleeping), I hit the lawn mower till it started raining on me. Then, I hit the kitchen again and peeled, cored and canned 6 pints of tomatoes that were approaching the too ripe to use point. I used to can about 200 pounds of tomatoes per season and have not done so in about 10 years. It feels pretty good to get back into the swing of these things after so many years of health issues that kept me from doing so...

Garden Bounty!

After spending a week at the county fair running a concession wagon, I finally got a chance yesterday to go through my garden looking for goodies to eat! I was thrilled to harvest yellow squash, cucumbers, green onions, tons of tomatoes, peppers of different varieties, and green beans.

And, check out these squash! They are a foot long!

The last thing I picked were the beans... These are Kentucky Wonder pole beans--my absolute favorite bean...
Aren't they gorgeous!! They were the only real protein in my veggie dinner last night. We had fresh corn on the cob from a friend's garden (mine isn't ready yet), these beans cooked in the pressure cooker, and cut up a fresh 'mater (tomato) to round out the plate. It was a red, green and yellow masterpiece! I wish I'd snapped a pic for you all!

I also have pumpkins that are just about basketball sized and string beans a-plenty! I need to get to the store this week and get some canning jars and some rings for my old jars...

Reaping what you sew...

With garden plans readily under way, I am taking some time now to get my canning gear in order again. I used to can years and year ago when I still lived in Florida. I did mostly tomatoes as they were so readily available and we used SO many of them. I probably canned in the neighborhood of 250 pounds of tomatoes a year. I did it all with a water bath canner though and not a pressure canner. Mom used to pressure can veggies all the time and she passed her canner on to me a few years back. It has been gathering dust and in need of a replacement sealing gasket. And, as I've not had anything TO can, I have never bothered with it. Now, with the garden prospect ripe in my mind, I realize I need to get this gear back in shape! I actually own two Presto pressure canners. I have a model 7-B which is a 16 quart pressure canner and a model 01/CA21H which is a 21 quart pressure canner. They both need new sealing gaskets. Both of them have a lid handle broken. One of them needs a side handle replaced. I have only one rack for the bottom and only one weight to go on top! SO, I went part shopping and found great deals from an Ebay dealer with good prices, free shipping on items after the first item, and good feedback scores (99.8 percent positive with over 74,000 auctions under their belt!). Who is this great seller, you may be wondering??? The name is BuyItNow. They had everything I needed but the rack--including a replacement blade assembly for my Krups blender! How cool is that! LOL Now, just got to PayPal them once the combined invoice comes by email!

Next, I've been poking around the internet looking for information on using a pressure canner since the books for these canners are LONG gone! I found good info on Presto's site. There's info there on both water-bath canning AND pressure canning various foods. There's also info on canning high-acid foods and low-acid foods at the Ball website (jar manufacturer). There is a nice short piece on the Univ. of GA website on Preserving Food as well. The Ball site has some canning recipes listed.

If anyone cares to comment on what they can and/or how they do it, I welcome the help!