We’re planting a (small) garden this year. It’s our first ever attempt to grow so many things. We’ve planned as best we can. So well, in fact, that we expect a lot of produce. It’s six raised beds with automatic irrigation and plenty of morning through midafternoon sun. The peas and strawberries are already coming up fast.
Now, we’re worried about having too much. Online sources either assume you’re already a canning expert or an idiot. We’re not either of those.
I’d like to know from some of you what you’ve run into before that we should know about. Are some jars better than others? Is a pressure cooker absolutely necessary. (For that matter, is cooking absolutely necessary). Should you can tomatoes just plain? Or should you season them. Or make the sauces and can those?
Please share any basic information you have that might be useful to first-time gardeners and canners, along with any gotchas that you learned the hard way. Thanks so very much!
My best advice would be to find a copy of Stocking Up or Putting Food By right away, and then reading them while everything is growing.
Canning and preserving isn’t hard to do, but it’s like any other skill: it will take time and following directions to do well.
One tip I can offer unequivocably: Buy your canning jars at rummage and yard sales and you’ll save a pile of money. You’ll still have to buy new lids, though.
Hey there. I am not an expert canner, but I have done some.
The Ball Blue Book is an invaluable resource for the technical aspects and has recipes as well. As a general rule, the safest canning for N00bs is pickling. Not a whole lot can survive being boiled in acid.
You do not need a pressure canner for any high-acid process. This would including any kind of pickling, the majority of fruit jams, and common fruits (pears, peaches) packed in syrup. For these you just need a deep pot, something to keep the cans off the bottom, and a thing to pick the hot caans up with. You can buy it as a set; often you can get old perfectly servicable hot water canning rigs at yard sales.
Non-acid foods (most vegetables packed in water/broth, meat) requires a pressure canner. I have never tried it, truthfuly I am too intimidated by botulism.
My advice is to buy the Blue Book and practice with several extremely simple, safe recipes until you feel confident in the process. May I suggest dill-pickled green beans?
I’ve canned mostly jams and chutneys and it’s very easy to do. Get a canning kit, if you don’t already have one. It will have all the little gadgets that make the job easy (Jar Lifter, Lid Wand, Canning Funnel, and a pot to cook them in). A good recipe book is a must and follow directions carefully until you get some experience. I also use a tomato press which makes big jobs much easier (great for apple butter). I have no preference regarding jar manufacturers. I usually buy what ever is on had at the store. I do choose specific jar sizes depending on what I’m making and what I intend to do with the final product (i.e., Xmas presents, personal use, etc.). As I recall, there was a coupon on some Ball lids I bought some time ago that allowed you to send away for a cookbook and other low cost canning stuff (an apron that says “Yes, I can!”).
Don’t be afraid of canning. It’s a lot of fun and very rewarding (in more ways that one).
When it comes to tomatoes, I’d opt for just straight-up canning them, no seasoning or sauces. All you need to do is blanch them to remove the skins – it’s made easier if you cut a very shallow X at the base of each tomato before plunging it into the boiling water. It makes peeling them a ton easier (and wear gloves – the acidity really gets to my fingers after a short time).
Squoosh the blanched whole tomatoes into each jar; their own juices will fill in the spaces between. They’re delicious and flexible enough to use for lots of different dishes throughout the year.
I’ve found The National Center for Home Food Preservation website to be quite useful. They tend to err on the safe side in canning matters.
Old Editions of ‘The Settlement Cookbook’ also contain much canning and food-preservation wisdom.
You absolutely want to take every precaution to can safely. Botulism is not a day in the park and you can set yourself up for other nasties if you aren’t pristine in your processing. Which is why, frankly, I’ve never done canning. Jams - fine. Vegies - I’d rather freeze them.
Another reason why I boil anything I jar. For this reason I like to make salsa, and tomato sauces/hot sauces. You can cook the snot out of them and can them hot.
I sterilise the jars by washing them in the dishwasher first, then dip them in boiling water just before the product gets poured in (so both the jar and the contents are the same temp - HOT). Screw on the lid and wait for the filled jars to cool. As they cool you’ll hear the telltale POP of the lids. The ones that don’t pop will get frozen and eaten first (remove some contents to allow for expansion!) or you can re-boil and try again - the smaller jars are the ones that give me trouble, there just isn’t enough material and air in the jar to shrink enough to make the lids pop.
Try different recipes, make your own, and have fun.
Gardening is more time consuming and rewarding than one would think!
Agree with everything everybody has said. It’s not hard but you HAVE to follow instructions, and it’s very important that they be modern ones. I read somewhere that when everybody got nostalgic in 1776 there was a big spike in botulism cases, because people were canning from Grandma’s recipe without her knowledge. Get the Ball Blue Book, which may well come with your canning kit, and follow the directions. I also suggest The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving. Start with something you can make with frozen stuff or from the grocery store (my first try was bluebarb jam, blueberries and rhubarb - due to the seasons, at least one of those ingredients will be frozen anyway.) Boiling means boiling, really boiling. You’ll know it when you see it. As long as your lids pop down, you’re probably fine.
Sterilize, sterilize, sterilize. Even then, you can end up with spoiled food or botulism. I scrub out my jars and run them through the dishwasher before starting anything, and then I put them upside down in an inch or two of simmering water in a pot so they’re steam sterilized directly before I fill them. Always clean the rim of the jar with a clean wet cloth before you put on the sealer. Always try to fill jars with hot stuff, it makes it easier to get them to temperature in the canner and means you don’t need to cook the hell out of them in the water bath.
Buy a canner (big-ass enamel pot) with a rack; you may be able to find this and jars at garage sales or thrift stores. You’ll need to buy new sealer lids every time, they are not re-usable but the bands are.
You’ll also want a jar lifter unless you have a rack in your canner pot. I’ve burned myself more times than I care to remember.
I’ve never, ever canned in a pressure cooker, always boiling water bath for me. I’ve canned everything from wild meat to spaghetti sauce, to fruit and vegetables, to homemade soup. I’ve had only two jars of anything ever go bad in 20 years of canning.
Use a stick about 2 and a half feet long, preferably smooth and lightweight. You want to do it lightly enough for it to be safe, but hard enough to hurt. Agree on a safe word.
