Canning the Local Harvest for the Long Winter Ahead

Canning the local harvest is a great way to save money and become self sufficient. Some of the best strategies to save money within the family begins with food, as groceries are usually one of the highest monthly bills.

Start canning the local harvest using high acid foods first. Try Canning Tomatoes first, as well as canning Fruit Recipes like jam, pears and apple pie filling. These are the easy High Acid Foods that you process in a water bath canner. Later on you can move to using a pressure canner.

Jacol

We will start with the idea that there are several ways to preserve the local harvest. We have outlined home Pressure Canning Instructions for all the approved food preservation methods.
These include Water bath canning, using a Pressure Canner , drying, pickling, curing, smoking, freezing and fermenting.

Water Bath canning is a good place for the beginner to start. It is used only for foods on the acid side of the ph scale. This means that high acid foods including fruits such as tomatoes, jams and jellies, berries and peaches, and only properly pickled vegetables are safe to process in simple water bath canners.

Izik

I started by both growing my own organic produce, and by getting my berries from farmers offering their local harvest to the public.
I learned on the high acid foods first, by home Canning Roma Tomatoes and canning fruits and even Canning a Great Salsa.

Canning vegetables came next, later putting up Pickling vegetables from the farmers local harvest.
Home Canning Meat I only tried after going over the home canning instructions in my pressure canner guide with a fine tooth comb. My friends were making Canned Tuna Fish and really inspired me to go to the beach and get some fresh tuna off the dock!
Some tomatoes and figs are close to 4.6 and must have acid added to them to use safely in water bath canners. Simply add the right amount of citric acid, found in lemon juice, for your particular recipe.

Credit: The Wandering Angel

A water bath canner is a large pot, tight fitting lid, with a wire rack to keep the jars from touching each other, cracking or breaking. If your stove does not fire up hot enough to boil water quickly you can use your Coleman stove, or buy a propane fired metal pot holder to really get cooking. You will find me out on my back porch every summer water boiling my fruits with one of these propane stands. It heats the water and jars much faster than my electric stove.

Home Canning Instructions Hot Pack vs. Cold Pack

Canning Food by hot pack means that you have cooked on the stove top a mixture in a syrup, liquid or water and added to the jars while hot, then further processing them in the boiling water bath.

Mariko

Cold pack means you put the food in the jar while still in it's raw form. Foods that go soft and soggy easily go in the jar uncooked. Pickles and asparagus are common examples.

Using the boiling water method, you select and prepare the fruit, processing at 212 degrees at sea level for a specified period of time. The jars must be completely submerged under boiling water.

If you need Canning Supplies here are several key items to pick up. Happy Canning!