Whew! Enough already of Home Canning & Freezing

strawberries, peaches, blueberries, beets,green peppers

Lynn's Mom's Canner (from about 1940!)

Green beans and Tomato juice

It's hard to believe that I actually have little or no influence on my sweet hubby when it comes to planting garden. he doesn't know how to plant only a few plants, it has to be AT LEAST one full row, and with some things, such as green beans about 5 rows! This year everything produced well, thus my dilemma. As I saw it I had a few options:

• form my own "farmer's market" but give away produce instead of selling it
• let much of it go to waste, OR
• can, can, can and freeze out the wazoo!!

Since I really hate to see good produce go to waste, I gave away what I could, ate what we could and then did canning and freezing. I'm hoping the final tally is in. Some of these are approximates, as I don't remember exact numbers, but--

• 52 pints of green beans (We gave at least 25 jars to Lynn's daughter, Janelle)
• 25 pints of tomato juice
• 15 pint freezer bags of beets
• 25 pint freezer bags of peaches
• 30 pint freezer bags of strawberries
• 15 pint freezer bags of blueberries
• 8 pint freezer bags of diced green peppers
• 25 quart containers of applesauce

Needless to say, although we will eat well this winter, I'm wondering if next year we might just make a trip to Aldi's or Sam's once in a while. I hear it from good sources (step-mother Kay and Mother-in-law Gloria) that canned goods are very reasonable and certainly a lot less work! I'm guessing that will never work with my farmer husband. Just think--if I weren't canning and freezing, I could be working on my fitness and exercise program--I AM going to start one soon!

If any of you run short of goodies this winter, just give me a call. At the very least, I can invite you over for a home-grown meal! As Julia would have said, "Bon appetite"!