Canning or Preserving Your Garden This Year

[slow motion]

well, yesterday we canned 5 quarts of tomatoes. Today we have 12 quarts of veggie soup just starting in the canner. I bought some frozen veggies from the store to go in with our tomatoes, banana peppers, squash, zucchini and onions. It sure will be good this winter with a big ole pan of cornbread.

I still have a 5 gallon bucket full of squash and zucchini to work up this afternoon.

Our tomatoes are real slow about ripening this year. Hopefully we will get enough to put up 30 or more quarts in the next few weeks.

The blasted deer have just destroyed my green beans this year. I told Meeno the law allows me 12, and by jiminy I am gonna put 12 in the freezer this year. Rascals have about ruined my corn patch, eat all the tops out of my cantaloupes and punkins too.
You can't raise a pea around here. Just as they start to fill out the deer raid them in one night.

Same problem here. Deer, rabbits, and ground hogs have hit my garden hard this year. All the beans, cucumbers, and sunflowers. Now working on the okra, tomatoes, and peppers. I got lazy and didn't get my fence up. Keeps out the rabbits and groundhogs. Deer not so much. Just a small garden though. Nothing like your scale.

 

[B. White]

I put up a simple electric fence in January that has worked well to keep deer out, but the drought really cut production. I see deer most every day and they seem content to eat just outside the wire. We pulled and froze the last of the corn, except for a little I left for seed. I cured about 12 pumpkins and have a lot of butternut not quite ready. It grew down the corn rows and they are scattered all over.

Yellow squash is still coming, but I have enough in the freezer. I'll do some more if we can't keep it ate. The zucchini looks good and has a few on it, but not putting out like normal. Purple hull and zipper peas quite blooming during the drought, but have started back now, so we may recover. We eat a lot of jars of peas all year.

Maters came in heavy and stopped about the time it started raining. I've got a good many green ones, so we may get a 2nd load. The ones in between have been pretty small and sorry.

 

[MOTS]

We've found that to go ahead and make squash casseroles work best for us. We probably have 25 or so in about an 8x8x1 tin square plates. Probably 5 in deeper foil pans. The wife double wraps them good in foil. Works great to just toss in the oven for about an hour. Always works good for sending a plate to certain events that pop up.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

got some good sized 'maters just out of the garden

picked 2 5 gallon buckets off about 20ft in a row over 100ft long.

 

[ryork]

I've canned some green beans, tomatoes, pepper sauce and pickled okra. Still have pickles (i.e. cucumbers) and pickled dilled green tomatoes from last year. My cucumbers, squash and zucchini are done, and the pole beans have been struggling the last couple weeks. Still got a good supply of tomatoes, okra, eggplant and various peppers coming in.

 

[kayaksteve]

Canned 40 something quarts of beans so far, gonna can some more tuesday. Went ahead and turned family and friends loose on the beans that are left. Tomatoes are loaded but have been slow to ripen, been eating them as they are ripe so far. Got started late so the purple hulls, butter beans and okra still have a ways to go. Tried pickling jalapeños and banana peppers this week and they are pretty good. Usually don’t put up any squash or zucchini so other than what I give away we’ve pretty much let it go. Pumpkin and gourd vines looking decent but they always seem to be hit or miss for us.

 

[NE GA Pappy]

Canned 40 something quarts of beans so far, gonna can some more tuesday. Went ahead and turned family and friends loose on the beans that are left. Tomatoes are loaded but have been slow to ripen, been eating them as they are ripe so far. Got started late so the purple hulls, butter beans and okra still have a ways to go. Tried pickling jalapeños and banana peppers this week and they are pretty good. Usually don’t put up any squash or zucchini so other than what I give away we’ve pretty much let it go. Pumpkin and gourd vines looking decent but they always seem to be hit or miss for us.

I hope my pumpkins do ok. the deer have been hard on them. I am planting some more squash tomorrow from seeds we started in peat cells.

 

[kayaksteve]

We’ve had great luck with the solar charged electric fence the past couple years. One wire about 6 inches off the ground and another about waist high. Maybe a couple times I’ve found tracks in the garden since putting it up and they were circling trying to decide how to get back out. Very worth while investment but I know others that haven’t had the luck we have

 

[NE GA Pappy]

We’ve had great luck with the solar charged electric fence the past couple years. One wire about 6 inches off the ground and another about waist high. Maybe a couple times I’ve found tracks in the garden since putting it up and they were circling trying to decide how to get back out. Very worth while investment but I know others that haven’t had the luck we have

I am gonna have one up around the garden next year. But I am gonna thin the herd hard starting open day of bow season. I have never killed 3 in a year. This season I intend to fill all my tags.

If it's brown, it's down.

 

[B. White]

I am gonna have one up around the garden next year. But I am gonna thin the herd hard starting open day of bow season. I have never killed 3 in a year. This season I intend to fill all my tags.

If it's brown, it's down.

I started out that way last year. Shot some and drug some off cars hit and still saw 10 at a time the last weekend of the season. I put up three strands in Jan/Feb and I used gate handles and the attaching points for them in several places so I can come in from any side with the tractor. I have a inexpensive plug in version and it still works when grass or peas grow up on the bottom wire.

I finally tried the method I had been using for squash to freeze some okra with cornmeal on it. Cut it, shake it up in cornmeal and spread it in the biggest pan I have with some oil in the bottom and sides so it doesn't stick. 350 for 15 mins, stir, another 12 mins and I let it cool. Seal in bags with the vacmaster. We semi-thawed some and put it straight in oil and it will be quick and easy for meals all year.

 

[kayaksteve]

Went to the cannery today for one last bean canning. Up to 57 quarts of beans(give away twice that probably) couple dozen pints of pickled peppers, 38 quarts of vegetable soup and 2 or 3 pounds of frozen chanterelles. Need to work on some tomatoes now, Usually just freeze them but I’m gonna do some canning this year due to limited freezer space

 

[elfiii]

I've been blanching and freezing beans. Okra gets cut into wheels and frozen as is. Peppers and cukes get canned. Skwurls have hauled off every tomato my vines have produced. I'm going to start trapping and killing them. Just put in Spinach as my first Fall crop. Collards and lettuce soon to follow.

 

[Paymaster]

No garden this year.

 

[Nicodemus]

I wasn`t able to have and tend a garden this spring but I`m well enough now that I will have a fall and winter garden. I can`t go through the winter without collards, mustard, and cabbage.

 

[mrs. hornet22]

I started out that way last year. Shot some and drug some off cars hit and still saw 10 at a time the last weekend of the season. I put up three strands in Jan/Feb and I used gate handles and the attaching points for them in several places so I can come in from any side with the tractor. I have a inexpensive plug in version and it still works when grass or peas grow up on the bottom wire.

I finally tried the method I had been using for squash to freeze some okra with cornmeal on it. Cut it, shake it up in cornmeal and spread it in the biggest pan I have with some oil in the bottom and sides so it doesn't stick. 350 for 15 mins, stir, another 12 mins and I let it cool. Seal in bags with the vacmaster. We semi-thawed some and put it straight in oil and it will be quick and easy for meals all year.



View attachment 1166726

That's how my Mama taught me how to freeze okra.

 

[oldways]

We been canning and putting up all year elderberries are coming off now. Been making syrup and corn is starting to dry back for milling corn meal and grits.