There’s More to Canning (and Gardening) Than the Food

Every summer since we’ve had this blog, I’ve posted about our garden produce and how we work to preserve it. It’s a time commitment, from late winter when we plan the garden and order the seeds, to late summer when the garden produce has completely worn us out. The vegetables and a few fruits are wonderful and nutritious; we enjoy them and share them all summer long. Even as wonderful as fresh veggies are in the summer and canned or frozen foods from the garden are in winter, I’m sure there are people who wonder why in the world a couple of young parents who work full time even bother. The past couple of weeks have really put things in perspective for me.

After getting fairly comfortable with canning green beans over the past several years, this year we really worked to put up more whole tomatoes and tomato juice. Without boring anyone with the details, tomatoes and green beans are very different, in pH, water content, etc. Therefore, the canning methods are different. My mother in law did a LOT of canning when she was raising four children and she is my canning resource. I have always called her for methods, tips and suggestions. Despite her help and my efforts, plus plenty of help harvesting and peeling from mom, the tomato preservation has not been a big success. Last week I discovered that about 8 quarts of juice hadn’t sealed properly and had spoiled. Then I changed gears to whole tomatoes, again, they didn’t seal. A few weeks ago I did juice and seasoned tomato sauce with no trouble at all. I’m trying really hard to learn from my mistakes but I can’t figure out what I did differently when the jars didn’t seal. Could’ve been a bad tomato in the batch, an air bubble, a grain of salt on the seal or my hormones (no kidding, this was a potential cause of spoilage according to Sharon). So, I’ve put tomatoes in the freezer this year and will try again next year when my patient mother in law and I might get around to some hands on lessons.

So, spoiled fruits of my labor on my mind I sat down on the couch last night with Abigail and opened one of my most treasured books, handed down from our maternal grandmother. This copy of the Farm Journal Freezing and Canning Cookbook is stuffed with newspaper clippings and recipes that Dobbie painstakingly saved. I’ve used the recipes and the tips and suggestions but mostly I like to flip through it and think of my grandmother’s beautiful fruit cellar and the work it must have taken to fill it. Each jar was so pretty and perfect and every bite was delicious. She is pictured in one of the newspaper clippings exactly as I remember her, in her kitchen. Before the nursing home and the wheel chair. Abigail sat with me and asked who ‘that lady’ was and I almost had to fight back tears. How could she not know Dobbie? Of course, they never met since Dobbie has been gone almost 6 years. But it was a moment of clarity. This is why I do all this, with the gardening and the canning. I want the kids to know about these memories of mine. I love living in the country and sharing this life with my husband and our girls. I know that if Dobbie were here she’d sit right down at my kitchen table and discuss what on earth I had done wrong with those dumb tomatoes. These are skills and hobbies that are less common with every generation and I really, really want our girls to understand and appreciate home grown food and the family history that it is built on.

This post was written Sept 1. I’ve been trying to remember to scan the picture ever since! In the weeks since then the garden has pretty much finished for the year. My last project with the season’s produce was a really fun day of canning salsa with Mom and a really good friend of mine, Ashley Brown. It is delicious!