I keep my smaller canning pot, with the basic tools stored inside, easily accessible in the laundry room so I can make a small batch without digging out the big pots, camp stove, etc. The smaller pot holds 7 half pint jars & I can use it on my glass top stove.

Chas, Annie's freezers are full of the beef, pork and poultry (24 chickens alone) she and DH have raised.There may be some left from 2016 and the 2017 is now arriving. Therefore, things like produce and stocks are canned for the shelf.

I have had the same problem. At the time, we had one full sized freezer and the freezer on the old second fridge. All were full and had the potential to break your foot when the roast jumped out. The call came that venison was available so we bought a smallish chest freezer. No way could I put vegetables, etc in there so I learned how to can. Freezers are still packed and I now make a lot of my own soups and stews canned for easy night dinners. As of today, I have over 40 quarts of soup on the shelf and more coming this week.

Were do I keep the supplies? One area of the basement has all the empty jars, lids, giant stock pot, PC canner and a BWB canner.

Yes, I go shopping in the basement.

Yes, Chas, I have three freezers. We've put two deer, a couple dozen chickens, half a beef, a whole pig, those chicken backs, etc., all in the freezers. I also freeze things that don't can well, like rhubarb for pies (24 quarts right now), strawberries, blueberries, mashed butternut squash, shredded zucchini, and 50+ quarts of shelled cranberry beans because we like them better frozen than we do canned or dried.

I've canned over 200 quarts of beans this year, along with tomatoes, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, chili sauce, enchilada sauce, tomato marmalade, grape jelly, greens, chicken stock, jalapeno relish, well, you get my drift. If I can grow it, I can it, or I freeze it. We eat it all winter and I start again next year. I do dehydrate leeks, garlic and sometimes apples, as well as hot peppers.

As Peppi mentioned, meats and vegetables that are not pickled must be pressure canned. High acid fruits, pickles and fermented products like sauerkraut can be water bath canned. Both my canners are in the garage, which is attached to my kitchen, and I can all winter. Lids, strainers, funnels and empty jars are also in the garage on shelves.

And to make it even more convenient my "new" Detroit Jewel Stove is sitting in the back laundry room, so I can make a mess, leave it there, make dinner in the "real" kitchen, then go back and finish my canning project before cleaning up for the night!

Can away, you'll find what's most convenient for you and do that thing, but it'll take a couple of tries before things fall into place. At least that's what happens for me. Even a small garden or a great buy at the farmer's market results in canning for me. A peck of grapes or flat of strawberries can be frozen and then turned into jam or pancake syrup or pie filling in January, when I have more time and the weather makes it more enjoyable. Cabbage is $1 a head? Oh boy, gotta snap up five or six and a box of kosher salt and make sauerkraut. A lot of things only get a few jars, like chicken stock, or jelly or hot sauce, but it keeps on the shelf for at least a year, most of the time much longer, and if your neighbor has a peach tree and doesn't use them or you want to have half a dozen jars of chicken soup on the shelf for quick meals or you want to just grab a jar and take it to work for lunch, well, canning is easy and convenient and infinitely better than fast food or taking a 10 mile trip to the grocery in a snowstorm!

Annie

I don't have a pressure canner, but I do a lot of small batch canning -- like 4-6 half pints of jam sort of thing. Lately, we have been using a pasta pot -- the kind that has a mesh insert, and putting the jars down into the insert. You can pull them out one at a time like you would in a larger pot or all at once by lifting the mesh insert. I can get 7 half pints and 4 or 5 pints in the one we've been using most.

“To take to work????” Annie, please tell me you do not actually have a second job off the farm. I feel inadequate enough as is, just looking at what you’ve done at home. :-)

MizLizzie, I'm retired. Yeah, I'm that old. (grin) I retired about 3 years ago, but I always carried my lunch to work because I worked in a small town that didn't even have a single fast food restaurant, only a single "greasy spoon" and the very small deli at the grocery store! Now my daughter carries her lunch to work, but I was really talking about Chas taking lunch to work.

Until I retired I did have a full time job and sometimes a second/part time job, as well as being a single mother with two daughters and a disabled father who lived on the farm. It was busy, but I've always had a lot of energy. I still do, so if I don't stay busy, I become disruptive and get into trouble, like a naughty child...

Annie