Canning lapse
fruit in jars – 2009
If I don’t make some Christmas gift jam or something, this will be the first year in my adult life that I have not canned anything. No glut, no can. By pushing our gardens to the limits of year round eating, and our changing eating habits, the need to can everything in sight is slowly disappearing. That, and trying to eat through the supply of canned food from last year – if it didn’t grow here this year, I wasn’t buying it to just to can.
I had every intention of canning more tomato sauce – no ripe tomatoes. With each blossoming apple tree this spring, I was dreaming of making more applesauce – no apples to speak of either, it rained so much this spring that the fruit trees lost leaves and had to grow new ones, it’s no wonder there isn’t any fruit on the trees, they are exhausted. Other tree fruit was the same – we ate out of hand all 30 of the Italian prunes. Mind you we have 10 trees, if that tells you what kind of fruit set we had. Pears actually did produce – but since none of us care for pears, and I still have about 15 quarts of canned pears from who knows when, and I was not adding to that shelf. My favorite, green beans, did not produce enough to can either. I know, that smacks of weirdness, but I really like canned green beans, luckily I have over-canned beans previously, so I still have quite a few, they will just have to last. That is one thing about canning, you do get shelf life compared to freezing.
I did however replenish the freezer with things that we normally freeze anyway. The berry crops were good this year, and of course, the brassica yields were off the charts. The freezers are stuffed for dark day meals. And many of our winter meals are centered around root vegetables and such that lend themselves to no putting up whatsoever. We will eat well, just different than in years past.
Have I given up on canning? No not at all, I have just firmed my resolve to stick to canning to beat the band when we have a glut, and use the food wisely. I still have whole tomatoes, roasted tomato salsa and sauce from previous gluts, it will have to last. I can be meter out food like a miser – we just opened our last package of bacon this a.m. – our pork lasted 2 years. And I love bacon, if I had to choose between bacon and chocolate, I think the bacon might win, so making the bacon from one pig last 2 years is no small feat.
So my hopes are for abundant crops next year – and in the meanwhile eating our way through what we already have. And admiring my canning jars from afar.
Throwback at Trapper Creek 
Wow … I’m impressed you were able to make bacon from one pig last two years :)!! We are no where near that record. I should, perhaps, do a better job of rationing .. hungry teen boy eats me out of house and home 😉 I did buy tomatoes to can this year .. our canned supply was gone and what grew wouldn’t suffice. Rather have relatively close to home grown farm tomatoes than store bought fresh or canned any day. You are so right about going with the flow of what yields your own land will produce. Very encouraging post. Don’t you find that by eating this way and relying on what’s available, you tend to enjoy food all the more .. than if you were to buy whatever .. whenever .. from the store?
Mrs. Mac, my hungry teenager eats broccoli like it’s going out of style – how weird is that? Yes, we do find we enjoy our food so much more, when we have so much time invested in getting it to the table. Seed to table takes some time, but is so worth it!
Your year sounds just like ours. Only fruit tree that produced was the pears but deformed so the cows are enjoying them greatly!
I just didn’t can either. Still have 50 qts. of tomatoes from last…think that will do for two people. Plus, at least, that many pints of applesauce from last year. Lots of strawberries so did make jam and make sauerkraut and kimchi. We are eating more fresh from the garden…green beans last nite,yum. Crops of kale,spinach and lettuce thriving in the garden. Still have enough jars that I can enjoy admiring them on the shelf!! DEE
Diana, it’s been an odd year for sure – so cool, and dry after the rains let up. I think our tomato sauce and applesauce will hold out too – and our greens are magnificent in the garden right now. So we are definitely eating well.
I like canned green beans too, it was the only vegetable I canned. On the subject of tomatoes, I don’t usually get many full size ripe tomatoes until I pick them off the vine and bring them indoors to ripen. This year I harvested one hundred and thirty pounds of green tomatoes, and have been filling a stock pot with tomatoes every few days for sauce. Almost all have ripened by now. I thought I’d get around to making some sort of green tomato jam or chutney, but I’ve been busy trying to keep on top of using the ripe ones.
Emily, I went ahead and pulled all my tomato plants and gave them to the pigs. If I didn’t have backup sauce though, I think I would have done the same as you. I made tomato marmalade once, and although it smelled like dirty socks while it cooked, it tasted very good 🙂 Luckily no one but me was here when I was cooking it, so I kept the sock thing to myself. 😉
There are some things that I would continue to can, like tomato sauce, because we like to eat pizza year ’round. But I am trying to learn to grow and eat more seasonally…
Paula, I am sure I will be canning next year – I did re-learn that tomatoes in my location without a hoophouse are a waste of time. We have pizza every week too – but I only use a cup of sauce, so I should be OK until next summer…hopefully.
The bacon from our most recent hog won’t last us 4 months! And that is with the sausage intermingled. Of course, 4 kids…
It is so nice to keep greens all year in a greenhouse or similar. Makes us feel rich.
Tabitha, you did have to mention sausage didn’t you! We eat lots of breakfast sausage 1/2 beef 1/2 ground pork – that is where the difference lies probably – but there is only 3 of us and my DH can’t tolerate the bacon anymore. We really feel for him…;)
Well at least I know you aren’t going to starve 😉 I had leftovers from last year and I haven’t canned a thing…..yet. I do have tomatoes that are ripening slowly though.
Linda, LOL, I’m a long way from starving that’s for sure! I may make some kiwi jam – it’s pretty good and does make a good stocking stuffer, not being the same old berry jam.
I’m not canning as much either because I’m trying to focus more on growing things that don’t need preserved and on trying to grow some winter harvesting veggies (so far spinach & brassicas & carrots are looking good).
You should try dehydrating pears – I don’t like them canned or fresh, but dried they’re quite heavenly. I simply quarter and put in the oven on low (around 100) until they’re leathery dry.
The ebb and flow of food is one of the wonderful things about growing your own, some years you just don’t get as much as you want, others you get too much.
Susy, I will get my pears back in pork form soon – I had to keep them picked up so they went to the pigs, who really relished them. I did pick some D’Anjou today though for fresh eating. I think it is the sweetness of the Bartlett pear we don’t like – does drying them make them sweeter or tone down the sweetness?
It would be boring if each gardening year was predictable, then it would be like the store. I like knowing we have enough of something – maybe not what we expected but all good anyway.
No canning here either. Didn’t even garden this year.
But I did dry pears – 12 quarts won’t last that long. Even if I try to save them they will be gone by early summer….
Thanks for not giving up on your blog at the one year mark. Looks like you haven’t run out of topics yet!
EJ, no garden! That would be hard.
I’m nearing the magic 3 year mark – blah, blah, blah. Blogging is a good way to record this time period for the farm.
I must be just far enough southwest of you to pick up some of the “mid-valley banana belt” weather. Tomatoes finally started turning about two weeks ago, and suddenly I’m deluged. Don’t really need to can that many, but my DH and daughter are constantly buying Campbell’s tomato soup, and I have finally hit on a recipe using tomato sauce that tastes close enough. I actually tried a recipe where you pressure-can the home-made soup concentrate, but in doing so I realized that just canning plain tomato sauce and doctoring it into soup as needed is about 75% faster and more energy efficient. So 50 or 80 extra quarts of sauce kind of feel ok to do at this point. Then I have to figure out if I really want another 20 qts of green tomatillo sauce! The tomatillos took awhile to get moving but now I have at least 5 gallons in the freezer waiting for a cold day to grind them up and turn into canned salsa. Perfect for one of these days when the house is chilly but I just don’t want to start hauling in wood yet! 🙂 The recipe is intended to use as dip, but we like to pour it over chicken as a simmer sauce and serve on rice.
This years biggest disappointment is that none of the walnut trees set more than a handful of nuts this year. Not nearly enough in the freezer from last year to suit us!
Susan, the tomatillo salsa sounds very good – I gave up on the tomatoes and pulled them before they got any late blight. I think our elevation and high rainfall makes it hard to ripen tomatoes or any long season warm weather crops. Oh well, next year will be different, I’m sure of that 😉 I have noticed how much smaller nuts and fruits are this year. Even though pollination was good on the chestnuts, they are tiny, and we know that wasn’t for lack of moisture.
That’s too bad that the fruit did so bad this year…same with the garden although you did get some things so not a total loss. Thank heavens you have some left over from last year! Now lets hope next year is a good one. Have a wonderful Friday
Maura 🙂
Maura, yes I can’t wait for next year! We have lots of cool weather veggies and some of the winter squash is starting to ripen, so not the usual harvest but still an abundant one.
You know, you can make jam and chutney and mincemeat out of those pears. Just a thought!
We had a lot of failures here in Oklahoma too. We had a month of triple-digit weather and hardly any rain. No beans. Very little broccoli. Only a few tomatoes. The peppers made it through and are producing pretty well right now. Our normal first frost date is in about a week so I’m hoping for a late frost this year. I have fall beans and got enough for a canner load but now I’m trying to grow seed for next spring.
Like you, I’m hoping for a better year next year. –Ilene
I’ve heard it’s good to trim fruit trees in unseasonally wet and windy weather. It reduces the pressure on the trunk and roots, by reducing the size of the canopy. All those wet leaves become heavy and then the wind rocks the tree backwards and forwards. I reckon that’s why your fruit and nuts have been much smaller this year. The tree had to put energy into surviving the change of weather.
It’s spring for us here in Australia, and with the unseasonally wet and windy conditions, I’ve just pruned most of my fruit trees – especially the 1st and 2nd year ones. I’ve also removed most of the blossoms too. I can see the trees are already struggling with the wind, so what blossoms do survive, I don’t want them taking reserves from the tree.
While it’s more labour intensive than I normally like (ie: picture rambling jungles instead 😉 ) I find the trees do much better for the intervension. There quite an art to food production isn’t there. You’ve just got to improvise (evovle) on the run!
Still impresive, garden-wise, compared to mine. Though I had a good year with tomatoes, finally! 5 years and this is the best tomato harvest I’ve ever had here. we haven’t dug up the potatoes yet, so I hope they did well. Peppers were so-so, but they seem to be putting in one last effort and I have a bunch of medium ones growing. I’m keeping an eye out for frost and as soon as I hear about it, all the remaining peppers and tomatoes will be picked.
How much bacon do you get from one pig? we’re talking about getting a pig next year…
Jenny, you had a great year with your garden! Hopefully I will have tomatoes next year 😦
You don’t get much bacon, 15 – 20 lbs maybe, depending on the size of the pig. But it sure is good!