The past week has been filled with quite a bit of canning and preserving! Most of my produce came from our farmers' market, as my urban garden just hasn't been able to produce enough for us yet. I'm hoping to get more creative with the space over the next few years and eventually preserve more homegrown goodness, but for now, the local farms will have to do!
I was able to pressure can 16 pints of corn, 10 pints of green beans, 6 pints of quartered Roma tomatoes, and 6 quarter-pints of tomato sauce (with my 4 varieties of heirloom sauce tomatoes!). I also put together 2.5 quarts of fermented dill pickles and a pint of fermented jalapeños. I used this recipe for the pickles and just used the same brine for the jalapeños. I've never tried fermented pickles....so....hopefully they turn out, because, I do love pickles!
We now have enough corn to get us through the winter, but I'm still have quite a few pints of tomatoes to store up over the next few weeks. I think I'll do another batch of beans as well. I'm also planning to do several quarts of soup, which was one of my favorite things to pull from the basement last winter!
If you are at all thinking about trying to preserve summer produce, I highly encourage you to do so! Corn, tomatoes, and green beans are totally worth the cost at a farmers' market and all can be frozen! Pressure canning is much more time consuming, but I try to keep most of our limited freezer space available for venison and other exciting things that my husband brings home, so I prefer canning. I also think it's kind of fun.
Here's to preserving summer's bounty!! How about you? What are you puttin' up for winter these days?? And what are your favorite preserving methods??