Canning & Food Preservation @midwest.social Milksteaks [he/him] @midwest.social 9mo ago

Canning haul from this year

Pictured is stewed tomato, salsa, spaghet sauce, tomato juice, marinara, ketchup, pickles, cranberries, gooseberry jam and ancient peaches from years gone. All sourced from a pretty modest sized garden. Not shown is sauerkraut and frozen corn

23 comments

Be very very careful - it's a slippery slope. My wife wanted "a small garden and maybe do some canning". Fast forward 3 years:

I've turned 2000m² (1/2 acre) of a meadow into a garden

I've learned how to build basic wooden structures and I've built a greenhouse

we've harvested over 2000 kg (4400lbs) of vegetables this year

I've purchased jars by pallet load this year. Twice. All are full.

I've had to buy and assemble a lot of metal shelving to store it all

I now own a small (27hp) tractor

And there I thought going into software development would keep my life largely free of manual labor..
- I think you're a farmer now.
  
  Greenhouse could be easily classified as a software project:
  
  it took 4 times longer than planned
  
  it's over budget
  
  plans changed as it was being built
  
  it's more than was actually required
  
  I was convinced it would be both cheaper and better if I built it
  
  I had no experience building things remotely like this before deciding to build it
- That actually sounds pretty great! Unfortunately I dont have any land I rent a 15x15' plot at a community garden, it's a real small scale operation. The most I could do would to rent an extra plot, in which case I'd probably plant tubers for once.
  
  You know with that much harvested you could probably sell the extras at a farmers market or something. Also I cant imagine going through that much canned food in a year
- You sure you're not living in Stardew valley?
Any particular reason you didn't leave the rings on the cans? I've never seen canned food stored with only the top on it like that.
- The rings aren't needed once the jar is sealed. Removing it can make it easier to tell when a seal has broken and the contents may not longer be safe.
  
  I can understand that. The loss of the ring to use as a pry bar to pop the top off baffles me, lol. I wouldn't know how to open it without the ring!
- Same question. I've never canned before, so idk what idk.
Bonus pickles I couldnt get to upload with the post
- How do you keep them from becoming soggy af and yeasty?
  
  Idk about yeasty but all I put in is vinegar, garlic, bay leaf, dill and sometimes mustard seed if I want them hot. But I think the trick to keep them from getting soggy is to cut off the blossom end, at least that's what I do and never have an issue
Okay, how much space do the tomato plants take up? Maybe I can achieve something similar in our own garden.
- I had 20 plants 4 rows of 5, they didnt take up excessive space. There were super sauce tomatoes, beefsteak, Roma and one cherry tomato bush.
This is amazing and a great achievement. Thank you for the share!
I want to try everything you made. Especially since it's all sourced from a garden, which I'm assuming means your garden. Which means that stuff is going to be so tasty.
- Thanks man, it's all really good stuff especially the juice. This years had celery, onion, garlic,basil, cilantro, tomatos and peppers I think I wrote v7 on the labels. It's also always nice to give some of the stuff as presents too
im no canning expert, but im pretty sure those are jars.

23 comments