I've got the water bath heating up and getting ready to put up a few jars of tomatoes, one of jalapeno slices, and trying a recipe for cucumber relish. I don't have enough of any one thing to fill the canner, so I'm making a few random things just to use up garden stuff.
Tomatoes were the second most common thing my mother canned (after green beans ). They came out really well because we used them mostly in sauces. We had creamed tomatoes a lot. Next was peaches and pears. We had 3 peach trees, planted by a previous owner, that somehow survived NE Ohio weather. (And 2 apricot trees that never did well). She canned all of these things only after they became ripe, so they turned out a little mushy, unlike the store bought ones.
I wish I had a bushel of GA peaches right now. I'd prep them for the freezer; to heck with canning. I'd like to say that I have a whole new appreciation for my grandma, who spent the hottest months of the summer in an un-air conditioned kitchen boiling a couple of huge canners full of jarred garden bounty. She wasn't "hobby canning" like me; she was putting up food for survival. Just my few jars of stuff took several hours of prepping, peeling, boiling, etc. and made a huge mess of the kitchen. Grandma must have dreaded those baskets full of tomatoes, beans, peas, peppers, peaches, pears, corn, etc. She also managed to have three full meals every day for my grandpa and a few farm workers. How tired she must have been.
They said on TV last night that the Georgia peach crop is a failure this year. So, we might have to buy South Carolina peaches. Georgia is called the peach state, but SC actually grows more peaches than Georgia. I made squash pickles yesterday. Sounds yucky but they are really delicious.
Are those dilly tasting or more of a sweet pickle? Did you can them in a water bath? They look really good.
You can have a jar pickles of @Shirley Martin after me ……I asked first so you can have a taste after mine arrives @Beth Gallagher They look delicious I love them on a dry biscuit with a slice of cheese or when I have meat I love the tangy pickles with a a nice hot sizzling steak
A warning to those who do home canning. Some marketers of vinegar are putting 4% vinegar in their bottles instead of 5%, which is standard and required by all canning recipes I have seen. Also, there are many reports of defective lids on the market. I don't know if these are American or Chinese. The Chinese are marketing canning supplies with an American flag on the container, leading the uninformed to assume the products are U.S. made. They are manufactured in China and no where on the packaging does it say "made in U.S." but the American flag leads some to assume that it is a U.S. product. I have gotten yelled at by dumb people when I try to explain that you shouldn't use home made vinegar for canning. They don't understand that it involves more than just pH. You would have to be able to titrate the percentage of acetic acid in your product to determine if your home made product meets standards. It is fine to use home made vinegar for salad dressings and for refrigerator pickles and such, just not for that which is going to be canned and sitting at room temperature.
A less trusting person might think this is yet another attack on people having an independent food supply.
I think there are some attacks on home canning, but the vinegar may be due to an acetic acid shortage I assume is due to weapons manufacture for Ukraine. I am told the industrial stocks have been depleted so they are using food stocks.
My friend who makes the pickled cucumber recipe ( but uses young zucchini’s in place of cues ) used a “ home brand” vinegar in one occasion, however the pickles didn’t keep they “went off” slimy … yuck …and she binned the lot , so anytime I’m using / making relish I buy the name branded vinegar which is now known as Vine valley vinegar ( it was known as suppelts vinegar ) https://www.barossamag.com/local-advice/barossa-history/seppelts-not-just-wine/ so it doesn’t pay to use inferior products @Don Alaska
I found the percent of acid on the label and noticed a decrease in some. Lots of vinegar is used for cleaning now (green) so maybe the manufacturers think cutting back would be OK for them. At Fleet Farm, the vinegar is labeled for canning but thanks for the heads up Don Alaska. I think the lids from normally American companies are made in China now too. I have noticed skips and deformities on the rubber occasionally-- even on Ball lids.