Canning is a lost art . . . Why?

I have always been a canner, I grew up around it and as a kiddo, it was exciting to get to sit in the room with the adults and hear the conversation, so it was well worth the hours of cherry pitting or peach peeling! As an adult, I naturally continued to do it. Over the years I find that people often are very surprised when I mention canning. They ask if its safe or why I would can. I think for me, it is about the cost savings, about knowing what is going into my family but it also is about security for me. If all else fails there is something in the cupboard. My kids don't realize that the times they had pancakes with apple butter (a treat!) or applesauce and pickles for dinner it was because I had a particularly difficult month and that's what is in the cupboard!

Canning is fun for the family. Today we were making corn relish (canning) and freezing corn. Hannah (8) and Jake (6) were shucking corn, Katie (15) was busy chattering about what classes to take in school and what sports to do to keep herself busy, Makiah (13) was busy rinsing the corn and running the husks to the compost. It was fun, a fun, simple, economical family project. And, when they have chicken with corn relish on top this winter, they will remember where that came from!

And, of course, it is economical. I can't argue that. I would guess if one was to buy all of the produce at the supermarket to can, it wouldn't be. Using a garden and good sales, well, it is far less expensive. My budget took a hit of about 700 a month this month (Ouch!). My exhusband decided to have another child, and so our child support dropped. Lovely. I won't even go there though. Anyway, putting up produce will help us down the road immensely!

There are some who say that by gardening year round there is no need to preserve, however, if you have kids, you have Peanut Butter and Jelly! You have pancakes and waffles and cobblers, you have loads of pickles. . .. its kid food! SO, I do garden year round and always have some sort of veggie, but its always nice to have canned tomatos or jelly in the cupboard at a moments notice.

So, here are just a few snapshots of this years work so far.





12 Jars of Corn Relish. This is super yummy over grilled chicken or even baked chicken. Then there are four jars of pineapple zucchini jam. Sounds strange but I had to do something with the extra zucchini, I was running out of options. These were done today along with four loaves of Zucchini bread and a dozen muffins.

16 pints of blueberry lime jam. Strange combo I know but they were yummy! The kids have already gobbled up two jars! Blueberries were on sale for 3.88 for four pounds. So, 16 jars cost me about 6.00. Not a bad deal!

12 Jars of bread and butter pickles. Kids will eat these like crazy. If I open a jar at dinner, I gurantee its gone! These cukes came from the garden so it was cost of vinegar (maybe a buck?) and onions (half of which came from the garden) so, maybe 2.00?

Also had 6 jars of zucchini relish, all the stuff came from the garden here too, other then vinegar. Not sure how much they would have been ? .25 a jar?

"end of garden pickles" these are primarily mixed veggies. The carrots and peppers I had bought, everything else was from the garden, the garlic, zucchini, onion, beans, and squash. These are pretty darn good . . .

Here's a bunch of it together, from one batch. Many more to come before summer is over. We seem to have a late start for alot of stuff here this summer. I am getting red tomatos but never more then 3 a day or so. My cucumbers are slow, but other things like my chard are going NUTS. I don't know what to do with it all lol!