Preserving Your Harvest

[TooCheep]

I've never seen it written any where. Wondering is it something that was passed along from back when lots of folks water bathed everything?
That's all I could think of?

I thought of that, but while that might be the correct source, it doesn't make much sense given current knowledge/practices.

Currently, all soup canning recipes use pressure canning to eliminate the possibility of botulism. That eliminates the need for any boiling after opening for safety. You only need to bring the soup up to temperature for eating.

If you use water bath canning, then most pathogens are eliminated and the *only* benefit of 10 minutes boiling is to kill them off if you did a poor job of canning. Botulism (and the toxin it creates) can survive both water bath canning and 10 minutes boiling, so the additional boiling doesn't eliminate this potential problem.

I'd like to know if anyone can find a documented reason for the additional boiling. At this point, I don't believe it.

 

[tripletfeb]

Let the fermenting begin!

 

[TooCheep]

Nice. Your setup looks like mine. Mason jars + glass weights + silicone lids. Very easy to work with and once fermentation is done, you just put them in the fridge and serve out of the jars.

 

[Sally PB]

We, after living here for 29 years, finally picked some wild grapes that grow on our property. I was going to make jelly, but DH said just making them into juice would be fine. (Yay, I get out of more standing over a boiling pan! I'm fine with that.)

Wow, is that stuff delicious! We didn't get much -- 2.5 cups -- so not really enough to make jelly anyway. DH put it over vanilla ice cream. Very tasty. I drank some with breakfast this morning.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Canned some more Apple Pie filling and Apple Juice today.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

The other day I had one apple pie filling that didn't seal. It fell over in the canner when I was trying to pull them out, and I suspect that is why it didn't seal. Anyway, I'm going to make a couple apple breads today with that pie filling.
Today I canned another 8 half pints of sweet relish. I'm happy about still getting cucumbers, and the chickens are happy about it too.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

3 trays of Acorn squash cooked and ready to be processed for the freezer.

 

[Sally PB]

The hot peppers are not cooperating. The tomatoes are ready, the habaneros and jalapenos are not. So I'm cooking down the tomatoes now. They'll keep that way for a while, and the hot peppers will catch up. If they don't, then I'll have to buy some to make salsa.

 

[tripletfeb]

I read an article earlier today that said you can overwinter pepper plants. Has anyone done this? I was planning on just saving seeds from my two favorite pepper plants but I'm gonna try this way also. Figured I have nothing to lose, still going to save seeds and the plant would just be tossed anyways

 

[Sally PB]

I read an article earlier today that said you can overwinter pepper plants. Has anyone done this? I was planning on just saving seeds from my two favorite pepper plants but I'm gonna try this way also. Figured I have nothing to lose, still going to save seeds and the plant would just be tossed anyways

I tried it with a habanero, with no luck at all. Then I read that those are really iffy, at best, at overwintering.