Finished my last batch of canned pickles yesterday, and hope to get the dehydrator filled with parsley today. Yep, still out there doin' it!

Agree with Annie that canning season here is just now kicking into high gear although there has been some bits here and there done. I skipped any pickling this season since we still have jars and jars of them so the few cukes we planted get eaten fresh. And we have been concentrating our efforts the past several months on perfecting (or trying to) our meat smoking efforts. We also want to get into smoking and canning fish this summer.

But I will add that for several months there simply were no new posts - at all. We have lots of lurkers and readers it seems but only a few really active participants and that is sad. But then I find the same thing to be true on other canning forums too.

Wish there was a way to encourage the readers and lurkers to be less shy. :-)

Dave

PS: I did note yesterday that the CDC just published (or republished) a couple of articles of proper canning techniques along with the latest data on cases of botulism and listeria associated with home canning. I noted in one article that asparagus and garlic in oil have moved to the top of the risk/source lists. For years it was green beans as #1 and potatoes #2 but they have now dropped down the list somewhat.

https://www.cdc.gov/Features/homecanning/

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2018/07/boiling-during-home-canning-wont-prevent-botulism-poisoning/

Still around, but my routines have changed since my DH passed. I canned quite a bit last year, but don't have a garden this year and start a full time job a week from today. Everything that could break down did. The tractor broke down so I'm using a push mower and just mowing around the house, the storage building and the chicken yard and coops until I can fix the tractor. Trying to get more training in with the fire department as well. Last Saturday we got Lifeline training and I will be working the EMT tent at our county fair during its run the middle of August. I do have farmers I get fresh veggies from and will do some canning later. I'm still eating off what I put up last year. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more in a month or so.

I appreciate your reply and I probably am most anxious to see this forum get into "high swing", I have frozen shredded zucchini and corn so far this season. I canned dilly beans and also cucumber dill relish. My cucumbers seem to be bitter this year, don't know what would cause that so I don't plan to do much with cucumbers.

My tomatoes are starting to ripen and I should have enough to can in about one week. I had tomato juice left over but ran out of regular canned tomatoes around
April so will have to can more this year.

I've canned quite a bit already this year. I did a dozen pint n a half jars of pickled asparagus back in March. I've made 1 dozen quarts of whole pickles, 2 dozen pints of spears and chips, and 6 pints of baby gherkins so far and 4 pints of pickled pepper rings.

My spring green beans succumbed to deer browsing and mosaic virus so I'm relying on my fall planting that will be planted this weekend.

I also made my first batch of Annie's Salsa yesterday. It was a close call on having enough ripe tomatoes. I used everything I had except a bowl of Sungolds.

I still need to do a marathon session of freezing sweet corn pretty soon too.

Just working on a batch of Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles. Lurking... not canning a whole lot. Yet.

My tomatoes aren't ripe yet, I've had half a dozen SunGold's and one Black Krim, but if everything goes right, I'll have tomatoes up to my eyebrows! I have done some refrigerator pickles, my first canner full of green beans and a dehydrator full of zucchini chips is running right now. I have beets that need to be used next, so either pickled beets or plain canned beets are next, whichever suits me when I pull them!

Annie

i canned up a batch of seasoned tomato sauce from last year‘s frozen Toms, I needed to get them out of the freezer! Talk about procrastination. Canned 9 pints of chokecherry butter and froze 4 qts of chokecherry juice to make jelly out of later. I froze 2 qts of mulberry syrup and 2 qts of blackberry syrup. I lost count how many qts of black raspberries and blackberries I have frozen so far. I froze about 10 qt of sugar snap peas, Canned 7 qt Concord grape juice, and 6 qt of Really Quick Dill pickles, more to do in the next few days.

I am waiting, not very patiently, for my tomaters to ripen and for the beans to set pods. Beans have been flowering for weeks, but no pods yet. . I have a feeling the beans and toms will be ready just in time for me to leave on my out of state trip to visit family!!!

It’s been awhile since I posted, and yes I don’t care for the new way the forum is set up, so I’ve avoided posting.

just finished canning 50 lbs of pie cherries, whole blackberries for pie, blackberry jam, and raspberry jam. Blackberries are just ripening so i will be doing more! Blueberry pie filling, syrup, and balsamic are next.

kayrae, I don't like many of the changes either, and it's gotten more complicated to start a new thread, plus things seem to load much more slowly. I don't like being linked to social media either. (sigh)

Wow, you've canned lots of fruit and berries, those will be handy later, I'm sure. I remember Grandma sending me out into the National Forest to pick wild blackberries, those tiny little ones. She'd can them and make blackberry dumplings in the wintertime, I just loved them.

Annie

I used to freeze all of my berries for pies etc, I ran out of room in the freezer one year and put some in jars. So much faster to make a cobbler! Now I do them half in the freezer half in the jars! I’m not really a dessert person but a pie or cobbler occasionally is wonderful and fast.

This year doesn't look like I'll have a good tomato crop but it's still early. I will have to can tomatoes and salsa since I didn't can any last year except for a few jars of tomato/corn salsa. I didn't dry any dillweed from my prolific volunteer crop. I picked strawberries at the beginning of the season for desserts and then at the end of the season before the PYO place closed. Too late I discovered I loved the flavor of strawberry jam with balsamic vinegar. Only made 2 half pints from the small batch recipe and put them in the freezer. Have an abundance of red cabbage because the 6-pack I bought early in the season at the local nursery contained far more than 6 plants and it looks like all I separated out survived. Now I have to figure out what to do with it all. I should have bought green cabbage because I donate cole slaw to the monthly church suppers. This week it will contain a small head of red cabbage that split after a heavy rain but I had to buy two heads of green. If I can get myself going I will probably try a curtido ferment.

Since there are only two of us I try not to plant too much. My husband doesn't care for pickles but he loved the sweet red pepper relish I made last year. I should defrost the frozen peppers and make some since the freezer needs emptying and we're out of relish.

Has anyone made a Christmas jam (recipe uses strawberries, cranberries and orange zest) using frozen strawberries and cranberries and been happy with the results?

Warning to bargain hunters (like me). Saw a good price on liquid Certo at Ocean State Job Lots … expiration date is September 2018. I guess it's a good deal unless you are trying to make apple jelly in October.

I'm still here to. Been canning....got some pears put up like apple sauce and some pickled okra, freezer okra, tomatoes, pickles, dill spears and dill chips. Ate so many tomatoes this year and didn't get to can many of those.

The canning season is about 2-3 weeks late and the tomatoes with exception to the first few that came on schedule and were fine in quality have not ripened well with more product loss. I am usually finished canning by mid August but will have at least one more canning session to go.

I had a good tomato crop this year and canned 28 quarts of tomatoes and a dozen quarts tomato sauce. Peaches have been ripening and I have canned 20 quarts so far and 14 jars of jam. The pears will soon ripen. My raspberries have not done well this year - too many Japanese Beetles. I am almost done for the year.

I did put in a fall garden so if it does well, I may have beans, peas and beets.

Helen

Today is the first time I've logged into this forum since I planted my garden this year. While it's producing fairly well, we've spent the spring/summer visiting my mother-in-law in hospice. She passed two weeks ago and now we're planning memorials. Between that and work I haven't been around. But today I got out into the garden and hauled in some tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and kale. The ripest tomatoes were roasted...meant to make a roasted sauce but let them go a bit too long so I'll make something else with them this week. My first-ever batch of zucchini chips is in the dehydrator, and I cooked a quadruple batch of zucchini tots for the freezer. Also a dozen banana chocolate zucchini muffins. I don't know if I'll even get out the canner this year...may just stick to freezing and dehydrating. My tomato harvest is going to be lackluster.

Liz, my condolences on the loss of your MIL. Sometimes life just interferes with our best plans.

Zucchini tots sound like a good idea. Like you, I have zucchini but the tomato crop is less than stellar. I'm right across the Lake, in MIchigan, so our summers were probably very similar, hot and dry.

Annie

Liz would you mind sharing your zucchini tots recipes?

Sure! I use this recipe, make up to a quadruple batch on parchment, and freeze them for later use. https://www.skinnytaste.com/zucchini-tots/ 

Those do sound and look good. Thanks for sharing it. Always great to discover totally new things. Especially when it comes to ways to use zukes. ;-)

Dave