Canning Lessons....Part 2!!!

So for the tomatoes, we cleaned each tomato thoroughly and then sliced them. The sliced tomatoes were then poured into a large kettle pot and set to a low fire for approximately 90 minutes. As the tomatoes were gradually converted into a sauce, we proceeded to add a cup of lemon juice and some fresh basil leaves. One thing to note is that I had to keep stirring the sauce to prevent the bottom of the pot from burning the sauce. At the end of the boiling stage scores of fresh tomatoes have been converted into this bright red sauce with a rich, tangy scent.















The next step is to prepare the canning components: mason jar, canning lid, and funnel. Each mason jar and canning lid needs to be thoroughly washed and then sterilized. To sterilize the components, first we had a small pot of water boiling. Then the mason jar and canning lid is placed into the boiling water for approximately 10 minutes to kill all possible contaminants. Finally the funnel is placed into the boiling water for 2 minutes before being placed onto of the mason jar. After that, the steaming tomato sauce was poured into the mason jar, the canning lid applied tightly, and the entire mason jar is transported into a basket covered by many blankets. The purpose of the blankets is to allow the Mason Jar to cool slowly and therefore avoid cracking the glass.

Canning the pears was pretty much the same process, except for the fact that each pear had to be cored before being sliced. This was an arduous task since we literally had a bushel of pears. So we all got busy and sliced up all the pears after 2 hours. Then the pears were dumped into the large pot with 5 cups of water and 1 cup of lemon juice and cooked under low heat for 3 hours straight.



In the 3 hour cooking period I gradually added about 4 cups of honey to ensure a sweet flavor for the final product. The concoction had to be stirred every 10-15 minutes to prevent burning. As the cooking proceeded, the pear slices gradually transformed into a rich brown sauce that smelled heavenly. Finally the sauce was poured via a ladle into many mason jars. The finished mason jars were covered in blankets to cool for 3 days.



After the 3 day hiatus, we unwrapped our gleaming jars of goodness. In total, we canned 3 quarts of Tomato Sauce and 9 quarts of Pear Butter!!!! :)

Canning Lessons....Part 1!!!

This weekend has been a great adventure. With the tomato surplus that I've been getting from my garden, I decided to venture into the mysterious world of canning vegetables. My fiancee's mother has been canning veggies for years, so we went down to her house to learn the secret art. We brought with us a 30lb sack of ripe tomatoes, all hand picked from my raised bed garden. Now once we got there, my future mother-in-law mentioned that we were just in time to help her collect the pears from an old pear tree in her backyard.

So off I went with a long wooden pole to pick the pears. Now pear-picking is a tricky job, you have to basically catch a pear in a little metal net on top of a 20 ft long pole and somehow snap the fruit off it's branch. Marisa, her mother, and I took turns doing the deed. And it was real hard on the shoulders after awhile. The sun was blisteringly hot and the pears were in all of these hard to reach places.

After awhile, we had exhausted the pears on our side of the tree, however, our neighbor's side of the fence still held many of the dangling fruits. So off we went into the neighbor's backyard and picked and picked and PICKED some more for another hour. By the end of the pear picking session, we had exhausted all the low hanging fruits of the pear tree. There were still hundreds of pears left, but they were either too high up or buried too deeply within the canopy to be easily retrieved. Still we ended up harvesting a bushel of pears.

With the pears and tomatoes at hand, we began the canning process!!!!

Garden is overflowing with food

This summer is progressing nicely and my Riverdale garden is overflowing with nature's abundance. The swiss chard and peppers are producing a few meals worth of tender greens every week. The herb garden is increasing my stockpile of oregano, cilantro, dill and chives. And most importantly, I'm being deluged with scores of tomatoes, scores of summer squash, and bag after bag of pole beans.

The 2 raised bed gardens represent a mere 70 square feet of cultivated soil, and yet their productivity has been absolutely astounding. Every square inch of soil is intensively cultivated, every crop is succeeded by other crops, the peas were succeeded by the beans, lettuce will success the swiss chard, sweet corn will succeed the summer squash and so on. In this manner, 2 small raised beds will produce several hundred pounds of nutritionally dense, organic produce.

Here we have straight necked, curve necked and green summer squash. The curved necked summer squash didn't grow as well as their cousins. I think I won't plant any next year.

We've gotten so many tomatoes that I don't know what to do with it all. We've been eating tomatoes every day for weeks! And the truth is, the fresh tomatoes from a garden is far superior to store bought one.