That’s fabulous! He can appreciate the work that goes into canning and preserving food!
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Jam day 1
Strawberry Rhubarb
Strawberry Mango
Strawberry Jalapeno
Left over fruit is in the dehydrator
Mango leather
Whole rhubarb
I’m tired and don’t want to cook dinner
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I water bath canned a few things as a young child with my grandpa, but I didn’t remember HOW to do it safely. So, I taught myself how to can. I’m in America so I bought a pressure canner (winter) Jan 2025. It took me until the end of October 2025 to be brave enough to try to can anything in it. I canned 15-20 lbs of peeled, sliced carrots in quart jars. I was so proud of them that we ate some for Thanksgiving and Christmas. A few times for dinner after, but I am hesitant to use them because the bright orange jars are just so cute on my shelf.
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A full pantry shelf full of home-cooked food does look so nice! But you can use these up and can more.
How do people can in summer when they live in hot climates? Our summer is much hotter than normal. My water bath canner is electric so I can put it outside so the heat doesn’t go into the home, but my pressure canner needs to stay on the hob. Has anyone tried using it on an a partoble electric / induction cooktop? Is something like that able to keep the pressure up for the entire canning time? I’ve got a paraffin camping stove too, but I feel that’s probably not reliable enough for canning.
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I remember my grandma and aunts on the farm canning foods in the hot summer heat! There was no air conditioning in their homes. Lots of sweat and hard work but also lots of ice tea and lemonade.
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Sounds like very, very hard work for them! And for them it wasn’t a choice like it is for me.
I also remember water bath canning green beans, cherries and jam in summer with all the women in my family. In my memory the whole kitchen was filled with heat and steam. But in my childhood, a warm summer’s day was 25C / high 70s. Plus nights were cool, so you opened everything up and the house cooled overnight.Now 30 (high 80s) is nothing special and it stays warm during the night.
I just heard that the farm coop I’ve signed up for is definitely happening! So from next year I’ll have way more produce to can. I only have a small yard and my life is busy enough, I don’t have the opportunity to garden in earnest. But together with 150 other families in the area, we have started a coop farm. We put together enough money for a long-term farm tenancy and agricultural equipment. We’ll hire a farmer and every member of the coop has to do some volunteering (the more volunteer hours the lower the cost and the higher the yield). In return, we all get a share in the produce and a share in the coop. I signed myself up for the food committee and I’ve already offered to teach a class on preservation next summer.
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It gets over 100F here some days in the summer. Most days are like 75-90. I freeze a lot in the summer (especially tomatoes and berries) and can in the cooler autumn and winter. Our winters can get low in the negatives. I didn’t garden this year unfortunately.
If I can in the summer, I do it in the cooler evenings and late at night. I do have central air conditioning though, so it’s not terrible during the day if I did.
Some people set up little summer kitchens outdoors with camping stoves I think. I never did that (yet). I don’t can as much as some people do though. My papaw preserved so much he rarely bought anything besides flour, sugar, and spices. I still buy groceries to supplement.
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A stranger in my neighborhood gifted me lots of lavender. Filled with so much gratitude especially because I LOVE lavender. My lavender plant is only a year old so not much to harvest from mine. I only have the solo plant planted amongst a flower bed with peonies. She had lavender growing all along her driveway (we both have sandy soil). I think I might do something like that next year. She said she would have just composted it but glad I could use it.
I’m probably going to hang them up tomorrow and put some in dry vases all around the house. 
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That looks so good! I need to plant lavender in my yard as well. The soil here is perfect for lavender. My grandma had lavender all along the path to her front door and the smell reminds me so much of her. She would dry them and put little bundles of lavender in all of the closets.
I got the Ball book for my birthday today! And a few canning jars. Smart to can in the cooler season @Dragon ! It warms up the house so you have to heat less too. We only have a small freezer, so that’s why I didn’t think of it. I have used this trick for meat though. It seems in my local grocery store the family-sized packs are most often marked down at the end of the day. I used to buy these and freeze them in several portions. Now I freeze whole packs and wait until I’ve got enough of one type of meat to can a batch.
None of the physical stores near me sell portable electric or induction cookers that I can run outdoors, so I’m not sure if I’ll just wait until the weather is cooler or I’ll try and order one online. We have a/c upstairs, but not in the kitchen unfortunately and due to it’s location in the house it’s difficult to get warmth out of that corner. I know in Germany a lot of farms have large basements, and they have kitchens in the basement, especially for canning!! Lol I have spent way too much time looking at German real estate listings. I live near the border with Germany and real estate is much cheaper there. For practical reasons I don’t think we can ever move there but I would love to have one of those basements.
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What a haul! I am going to see if I can find a spot for lavender!
I did not get to do much canning last year just the pears. I am so happy I did! I also did several bags of applesauce but I like it after it has been frozen so my freezer was filled. I did make a few small bags of frozen apple pie filling and a few gallons of cider. Most years I make enough jam to get through the year and to give away for work Xmas gifts. But not last year. Now my son wants to learn how to make it… Maybe if he shows up we will. I did get a few jars of dried apple chips for snacking on those are so yummy better then candy.
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Just came across this thread and it’s been so interesting to read about everyone’s different experiences with canning! I’ve only done boiling water bath - mostly jams/jellies but also a couple types of pickles (okra, dilled cucumber). I also have a pressure canner that I’ve been too intimidated to use! Funny that so many of us feel that way.
This summer I froze a lot of strawberries and plan to make jam with them when it’s cooler - 90F is too hot to have a huge pot of boiling water going (even with air conditioning)!
As far as canning outside, a friend of mine has a gas cooker she uses to cook collards outside for New Year’s (they’re too smelly to do inside) - wonder if that would work to can outside when it’s hot?
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Yep! That’s also what we used for crab cooking this summer.
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I’ve got the week off, and some empty canning jars on the shelf, so I’m looking for some recipes to can. I’d like to go into autumn with as full a shelf as possible, since this is usually the busiest part of the year for us. I’d like to have a good selection of different meals in a jar to choose from.
@jeanneleigh that looks like it could work for canning, as it’s attached to a large fuel tank and isn’t just going to run out unexpectedly, and it looks like the dial allows you to adjust the temperature so the temperature / pressure remains up. I’m a bit scared to deal with fuel tanks though, so I think I’m going to look for a portable induction hob first. If I can’t find that I’m going to look into those kind of things.
With a group of people, we are starting a farm coop in October. It’s really happening now (we’ve found land and there’s a lease now) and I’m really excited about it. The timing couldn’t have been better with the uncertainty in the world. So it looks like from next year I will hopefully have a lot of fresh produce to preserve.
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I have a week off, we’re in the country where all the food is. But I haven’t a good stove for this sort of thing. I would LOVE to just do plain tomatoes, bushels of them, because they are the foundation of so many things. Maybe my friend who lives in the church down the way would be up for a canning bee… Her set up is frikken awesome, multiple stoves, sinks and counters. I’ll ask her…
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Having a coop sounds very exciting! What a great way to get fresh (and safe) produce!
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I had borrowed a friend’s electric canner last year.
And I loved it. But she needed it back.
Then D found this. On sale $120 bucks off. It was still a big chunk of change
So we just went to the big Mennonite market and filled the trunk with produce
I guess I had better clean up the kitchen, I have plans for the week.
Tomato sauce
Chili sauce
Corn relish
Tomatillo salsa
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You never take half measures, do you??
I have what looks like a very similar electric water bath canner and it’s great. Because it’s electric you can put it somewhere else than the stovetop and I love the little tap to drain it, very covenient.
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Ooh, where did you get it? Were there more? I want a pressure canner. & a freeze dryer. I need another kitchen for all this stuff, lol.
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Canadian Tire.
When you get a freeze dryer, I’m coming over. With food in tow.
Im on the hunt for local cherries, for both jam and dehydrating. if you see some, let me know
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