• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Home Canning Update: Our Best Year Ever

October 5, 2020 by Jeanne

If you were afraid to try home canning, don’t be. I used to wonder if it was safe. It is. If you follow the directions, you can preserve your garden’s bounty and enjoy it all year long.

Home Canning – From Our Home to Yours

Friends often wonder, “What do you do with everything that your grow?”

It seems like we grow a lot of food for two people. And we do.

So what do we do with all the extras? We give plenty away to friends and to our church’s food pantry, which feeds 25-30 local families each week.

But we also preserve the harvest through various means, including home canning.

home canning inspiration board

Our Canning Update

This year, we’ve canned 369 pints of food. It’s been a joint effort and I couldn’t have done it without my husband, John. He’s taken to home canning with enthusiasm. I’m the designated “peeler” and he’s the designated “chopper.” I’ve peeled so many bushels of apples, pears, and peaches this year that I’ve developed systems for peeling various fruits to make it go faster!

Our canning projects included typical foods like green beans and pickled beets but we also made a few new recipes. I’m particularly enamored with pear compote, a mixture of pears, port wine, sugar, lemon zest and spices that tastes wonderful warmed up with a small bit of cream or vanilla ice cream on top. The Ball Home Preserving book recommended letting it sit in the pantry in the jars (canned properly, of course) before enjoying it and I think they’re right – the flavors mix and mingle and settle into a Christmas-in-your-mouth kind of thing that’s amazing.

We made refrigerator dill pickles and plan to buy cucumbers during the winter just to keep the pickle supply going. We made bread and butter pickles, too, which came out great, and dilly beans.

And of course, the apples…this year we were blessed with a bumper crop of apples. We washed and stored dozens in the cellar hoping that the cool temperatures will keep them longer. But we also canned apples, spiced apples, and both sweetened and unsweetened applesauce.

apples on tree
bowl of apples

I Taught Myself Home Canning

I taught myself home canning and you can, too. I used the cookbook below, a vintage graniteware canning pot inherited from my husband’s great-grandmother, and boxes of new Ball jars to get started.

Here are a few articles to get you started:

  • Home Canning Safety
  • How to Can Apples
  • Different Recipes for Canning Apples

Below, you’ll find recommended books and products to help you start home canning if you’re interested.

The following are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Thanks so much for being a part of Home Garden Joy!

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving: 400 Delicious and Creative Recipes for Today

Get the book.

Granite Ware Covered Preserving Canner with Rack, 12-Quart

Hot water bath canning pot (canner)

Mirro 92116 Polished Aluminum 5 / 10 / 15-PSI Pressure Cooker / Canner Cookware, 16-Quart, Silver

Mirro Pressure Canner
Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin1
Share
1 Shares

Filed Under: Canning and Food Preservation

Previous Post: « Walnut Applesauce Bread
Next Post: The Best Gifts for Gardeners »

Primary Sidebar

Learn Gardening!

writer Jeanne Grunert

Hi, I'm Jeanne Grunert, master gardener, gardening book author, herbalist, and writer. If you're new to gardening, welcome! I make it simple and easy for you to grow a gorgeous garden and cook with the fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs that you grow.

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

lemon on a lemon tree

Can You Grow a Lemon Tree from a Seed?

If you’ve ever wondered can you grow a lemon tree from a seed, the answer is yes, you can. But it takes patience and time to coax the tree into producing fruit. In the meantime, you’ll have to tend a tree that wants to grow into six, seven or more feet tall. Here’s the story…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme