So after spending the entire evening on Saturday shelling zipper peas, snapping green beans and washing every pot and pan in this kitchen twice, I spent most of Sunday morning cleaning the rest of the kitchen up and preparing to attempt my first ever try at canning... Yep, old school canning! (Super thanks to the our friends, the Parkers, who loaned us their pressure canner!) Hubby spent a huge chunk of the morning stuffing blueberries into freezer bags... so that freed me up to go retrieve my Grandmother's quart jars from the storage shed. Next up was washing the jars... and then I remembered that we threw out all of her metal lids and rings when we moved into the house because they were rusted. All I can say is thank the Lord for the dollar stores in this small town! Hubby scored new lids and rings and a whole flat of pint jars for whatever else we decide to can later. After washing the green beans four times (which took forever since there was probably 4 gallons of beans) we finally started the actual canning process. I have to say what a chore this whole canning thing is! I do not know how my Grandmother did this every year all by herself. I would say that the entire amount of time we spent was about 8 hours to can 14 quarts of green beans and froze the remaining 4 quarts. Whew! I am just tired thinking back to Sunday...
I do have to say that I am very, VERY proud of my Grandmother's antique mason jar collection. There are so many different ones and she has a ton of jars in quart and jelly jar sizes.
Hubby loved to stare at them while they bubbled in the jars long after they were removed from the pressure canner.
We are very proud of our first run at canning. Next up, is freezing the zipper peas... just hoping to score a few more from the local garden stand in town to go with them!
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