Canning

@Don Alaska It was frozen blue berries that I got infected from that are marketed as grown / packed in New Zealand but are from China ..I used them in smoothies .

It would be highly unlikely I’d get that sick from my own fruit or my cooking I never use any chemicals on my trees
and everything is throughly inspected and washed before going into my preserves

 

Sorry, I misunderstood. Washing anything frozen if possible is the best way to go, even if it is commercially processed. I shudder when I hear people say that you don't need to wash organic produce. You are far more likely to get sick in the short term from organically-grown produce than from chemically-raised food. Long term, however, is a different story.

 

I agree that the process kills most bacteria and virus.
Have you noticed that crops are'nt coming out like they use to? Have you had any problems past year or so?

 

Our summers vary a lot form year to year. We have hot summers and we have cold summers. This has been one of our cooler summers, and we had visitors plus travelled to visit a new grandson, so the garden and greenhouses haven't been tended like usual, so we will most likely have lower than usual yields, but adequate for our needs nonetheless, as we generally overproduce and supply food for our son's families. We also have selected some of our own varieties from purchased seeds over the years, so that helps.

 

We bought 25lb.s of carrots yesterday to can,that will last us for a couple years or more.Also since we have set up the canner,jars,etc. up we will also can the 9lb.s of dried beans we bouht ,we like small limas,white and green.
This is a job! but will be done once finished.

 

We harvested 75 pounds of carrots for ourselves last year, but I don't know if we will get that many this year. With only two people here, we don't have to grow as much as we once did. We didn't can any carrots, though, except in soups and such. We cold cellared them and they kept pretty well. We got our first real bean harvest yesterday, but only a large bowl full.

 

Don we haven't had a good harvest in 5 yr.s so we buy organic [hopefully] in large bags then can them. I wish we could grow more but life happens .But that is great that you are still going strong,

 

I'm sure some will disagree with me on this but I have always just put all my tomatoes in the freezer whole and not procesed at all. I just bought a bag of lemons that I'll do the same with just wash and freeze.
Good thing about freezing is the skin falls right off them when thawed. I stopped blanching years ago. Seems to make some veggys rubbery.

 

Yes if I have enough but sometimes I don't so I put freeze till I do have enough to drag out all the canning supplies.
If we didn't have a good crop sometimes we'd just buy a box of tomatoes from local farmers market.

 

We really had a great expirence when we did hydroponics in our greenhouse, but that was about 6 years .Below is some of our tomato we grew plus had some in containers.

 

It is perfectly fine to freeze tomatoes until you accumulate enough to make it worthwhile to can a batch. Pressure canning of tomatoes is not necessary if you follow a recipe and ensure that the pH is low enough to prevent bacterial growth. @Marie Mallery you said you gave up blanching long ago. While that is fine with tomatoes and other nightshades, most veggies need to be blanched prior to freezing (or dehydrating) to prevent the slow breakdown of the veggies in the freezer (or on the shelf in the case of drying). Wife has begun making tomato paste by baking (roasting) pans of tomatoes in the oven prior to canning, It works very well and eliminates hours of on-the-stovetop cooking away the moisture. You can also do this for sauce and the cooking time is less than with the paste.