A New Hobby

In all my spare time I have found a hobby I really like. Canning! My mom used to have a garden and we canned when I was a child. I pretty much didn't remember anything about canning except the mess it made and the wonderful products that we would eat all winter; but mostly the mess.

This year I planted a garden, not a very big one, and I started late in the season so I didn't get too much of anything out of it. In my garden I had tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, sugar snap peas, green peppers, hot banana peppers and cabbage; only a few plants of each. Not too long after I planted my garden the tomatoes got blight and I had to remove them. I did get a lot of cucumbers, zucchini and Banana Peppers; it was so sporadic though I couldn't do anything with them except eat them as they came in. Fall came and the garden was done, so I uprooted all the plants and called it a learning season!

I was determined to can something, so off to the market I went! I found a road side stand that had some tomatoes left, I bought a 1/2 bushel of "seconds" Roma Tomatoes and canning jars. When I got home I Google searched "how to can tomato sauce" on the internet and found a "You Tube" video on the subject. This guy made it look so easy, and most important to me, NOT MESSY! So I canned my first 7 quarts of tomato sauce. When I realized this was successful, my thoughts were "Oh imagine the possibilities!" And I began to dream about what I could plant in the garden next spring, and what I could make over the winter and can.

The next week we went on a field trip to an orchard north of us. October is apple month pretty much all over the state. So I bought some apples, came home and canned applesauce.

We quickly ran out of apples so my friend and I took our kids to another apple orchard and "picked our own" apples. I bought another 1/2 bushel of tomatoes to can. Yesterday I put up an other 7 quarts of tomato sauce and on Monday I plan to can another 5 quarts of applesauce.
This isn't nearly enough to get us through the winter, but I think I have learned a valuable skill for next year and how to plan my garden for the spring.