Any time is canning time if you find the right fresh produce or meat on sale. You really lucked out and had a busy, busy day. Doesn't it give you a wonderful feeling to look at all the stuff you've canned for future use? I've got some apples I need to make up into Apple Pie Jam right now. Got to love it!!!

January thru March are when the Cara Cara oranges are at the store (from Venezuela). They are only available for a short time as they do not "keep" like other navel oranges do. They are slightly pinkish and sweeter than regular oranges. I make Sweet Orange Marmalade, Chocolate Orange Jam, and lots of candied orange peel. I also take out the Celeste and Brown Turkey figs I had frozen in September to make jam because when they are ripe so are several other fruits and vegetables on the farm that need my attention that don't like to be frozen. It's the only time of year that things are quiet in my canning and commercial bakery kitchen.
Nancy

It's why I buy my canning supplies in bulk. I seldom use the commercial canning spice mixes, but there are a couple that I buy, simply because I like their blends. They're not only non-existent on the shelves in off seasons, but particularly in the rush of the typical canning season. I had this discussion with my local hardware store, when I went in looking for seeds. Gardeners are already needing some cool weather crop seeds now, and they wait until nearly May. They didn't stock up on their canning supplies until almost September, and I had already worked up nearly eight hundred pounds of garden produce. Buyers need to be cognizant that people can year-round, and whomever is savvy enough to keep a constant basic supply will be the bird who gets the worm. Serious home canners and preservers learn early on to prepare for outages.

Yesterday, I only had 2 wide mouth canning jars left so I used them (quarts) and then used 6 pints and 1 jelly jar (half pint) and did up just over 14 pounds of pot roast with extra set aside for me to cook fresh. I even cooked up the cut-offs and gristle (with a little meat attached) and reduced all that to just under a quart of concentrated broth (I could add water and turn it into store strength 2 quart jars) and ended up with snacks for the sis's dogs. This morning, I took to washing the outside of the jars and letting them dry before reinstalling rings loosely. I think I'll freeze the broth simply because I don't want to lose the flavoring fat on the top.

Good work, dellr!

We have a large amount of celery and mushrooms dried and jarred in the refrigerator. Both of those were from great Aldi's sales. Aldi's again had mushrooms $0.59 for 8 ounces last time I was there. Two other things thing they have super sales on are whole pineapple, $0.89 or $0.99 each and yellow onions, 3 lbs for $0.79.

I wish I could do more of my canning when the house is cold and dry. It would help!

Might as well mention here that I took a quart bag of raspberries out of the freezer this morning. Last spring through autumn gave us the prettiest crop we'd ever seen, I suppose because we also had the coolest summer of my life.

I have been canning up beans and stocks. Canning is definitely a year round activity for me.

This time of year I can up jars of beans from dried beans. I may make bean soup, pork and beans, plain beans etc. I also can potatoes from the 50lb bags I buy from a farm. Cabbages and pumpkins are still available so I cane cole slaw and chunks of pumpkin. Any fruit or tomatoes still in the freezer also gets canned up. If I find meat on sale that may get canned oh and also chicken Carcass that I've been hording along with veggie scraps, chicken backs etc. for stock. I still have a fair amount of apples, maybe pie filling or apple butter. I do all this when it's snowing b/c once it gets nice I'm out in the garden.