I Can Can!

I can! I can can. (That's just a funny thing to say. ;-) )

Not Can-Can! (Although I've done that too...)

I am talking about canning—preserving fresh fruits and vegetables in jars. I can can!

And I've been canning...

We bought our lovely house last November with one thing in mind...Well, two things. First, we wanted our own house that we could all comfortably fit into right now. But the second thing was that our kids are growing up, and they'll be moving out, and having their own kids, and we wanted a house that would have enough space for our eight kids and their eight spouses (16), and their families of eight kids each (bringing us up to 80 people) to come visit for big family gatherings...like Thanksgiving.

So we got a four-bedroom, two-bath house, with three big family rooms and a big kitchen and dining area. (We don't actually need three family rooms, so the one in the basement became my sewing room.)

The house also came with a smallish back yard that had one big covered patio, and another 20 x 25-foot brick patio (which I think was used for a fire-pit). The yard, before it was abandoned for two years, must have been lovely...lush, green grass, roses in nooks and along the block wall, and all surrounded by big shade trees. I'm pretty sure the people who built this house and the yard wanted a nice place for their family to hang out, too.

The trouble with the yard—aside from the fact that it was dying and would need a lot of work—is that nothing edible was growing in it. Unless you count roses. No fruit trees, no berry bushes, not even a garden space. We wanted to plant a garden—nothing huge, but a place where we could grow some summer vegetables and some tomatoes for canning. And we figured the place that would be easiest to work with, and got the most sun throughout the day was the superfluous brick patio. The brick patio had to go.

We all worked on removing the bricks (which are still stacked up by the house, even as I type this. We have a plan for the bricks...)

And there I am, looking my utmost best, removing a bush.
Bruce and I removed about twelve bushes from around
our patio/garden plot.

Once we cleared our garden space we were a little slow tilling the ground—which, after years of being covered by two layers of really good garden fabric and about 700 bricks, was kind of like a big baked brick itself. Finally, at the end of May we planted...

...one watermelon plant, six serrano peppers, six green bell peppers, and...

...thirty-six tomato plants! (Not because we are such great tomato-farmers; pretty much the opposite, actually. Also they were a really good price.) That left us no more space for summer veggies, like beans, carrots, radishes, etc.

Our little garden started out pretty enough!

Then Jason got engaged, and I became engaged in dress-making and wedding-planning. As part of the wedding preparations (a bread-bar for refreshments) I canned about a dozen pints of apricot jam, and maybe ten of cherry jam. But during that time we paid only minimal attention to our poor garden, which ended up looking a lot like a little jungle. Nevertheless, the week after the wedding we brought in about twenty-five to thirty (-ish—we didn't weigh them this time) pounds of tomatoes...some of which we ate with tremendous enjoyment. I also bottled about seventeen quarts of tomatoes and juice. Not bad!

The next week we had a lot of rain, followed by a big, swirling hailstorm (stones the size of marbles) on Thursday. Did our tomatoes survive?

That Friday we brought in fifty-eight pounds! We had fresh salsa, fresh tomatoes in salads and on burgers, baked stuffed tomatoes,  and I canned another twenty-seven quarts.

The weather has cooled since the hailstorm, the plants are beaten to death, and it's taking longer for the tomatoes to ripen; I think autumn is here. Still, we've been bringing in about fifty pounds of tomatoes every four or five days; so far about 250 pounds in total. We've got fifty-nine quarts of diced tomatoes, twenty-five pints of salsa, and thirteen quarts of tomato juice. On top of that I experimented with tomato jam—six half-pints (which turned out to be like spaghetti sauce with lots of sugar in it—kind of weird). And today, right now, this very minute, I am roasting the last of yesterday's forty-four pounds of tomatoes, which will be reduced down to sauce; I'll probably get eight to twelve pints of that.

Our garden today (after I picked everything that was ripe yesterday). We had intended to stake up the plants, and not let them sprawl all over the ground. But then maybe the hail would have ruined all the tomatoes. As it it, most of the fruit was hiding
under the plants when the hailstorm hit.

You'd think that would be enough canning for anyone, but between tomato sessions we kept driving past this beautiful crabapple tree that's in front of an empty house. I'd heard about crabapple jelly... 

Now we have ten pints of crabapple jelly, and that tree is still tempting me to make more—or maybe crabapple butter.

Seriously, they beg to be used.
"Oh, shake me, shake me, we apples are all of us ripe!"

And I think I'll try making some serrano pepper jelly. Because...why not?

Last Monday Lindsey wanted to go visit the Pride of Neola Orchard and pick some peaches. (Beautiful, beautiful fruit trees and friendly owners. They specifically told us to eat as much fruit as we wanted while we were out picking; we were delighted to comply!) We took the whole family to the orchard including Jason and Adreanna, who were visiting for the weekend, and a couple of good friends...which is probably why we left with eighty pounds of white peaches and honeycrisp apples, instead of the intended twenty pounds of peaches.

This week we've eaten a whole lot of fabulous fresh peaches, had a peach cobbler, and I'm wanting to try a peach ice cream recipe. Yum! And we also have nine pints of peach jam and eleven quarts of bottled peaches.

Next week I intend to make green-tomato salsa; maybe twenty pints. And whatever tomatoes ripen after that will be for our immediate eating pleasure. Or for friends.

My mom might tell me I'm nuts for working so hard—she often does, when I do the things that she used to do all the time. But back in the day she has bottled over 1,000 jars of fruits and vegetables in a year. I'm not anywhere near that; I don't know how you can even manage to do that much. Anyway, I gleaned my mad canning skills from her.

I don't know how the canning bee got into my bonnet this year. I've already spent a lot of time on my feet, in the kitchen, up to my elbows in fruit, but I am glad we have such a nice little store of home-canned goodies for the coming months!