For the first time ever, since I've taken up canning 10 years ago, I am running out of jars! I never imagined I would run out of jars to fill!
My tomatoes have exceeded my expectations this year and I have canned 41 quarts so far. Not enough if we were pioneers and lived solely off our garden, but it's so much more than the previous years! I still need to tweak how many plants of what tomatoes, but I am pleased with the harvest so far. Several plants are starting to wither and fade, but at least half are still going strong.
If it wasn't for the corn, I'd still have empty jars, but I'm not complaining-- filled jars are better than empties! I have 3 cases of pint jars left and 1 case of half-pints. Zero quart jars. I have been feeding the kids applesauce more often for snacks just so I can get the quart jar back! The kids eat a whole quart in one sitting. I doubt I'll make applesauce this year, I still have plenty from last year. I think I will get a bushel or two of apples to make pies and apple chips though and to eat out of hand.
The local farm store is sold out of quart jars. I'm hoping to score a case or two when we go into town this week. I was hoping to can irish potatoes with some of the smaller ones when we harvest potatoes. Last year I shredded the smaller potatoes, blanched them, then froze them for making quick hash browns. It took up a lot of space in the freezer and a lot of my time to prepare them and besides, making fresh hash potatoes isn't that hard, so it wasn't like a huge time-saver. We do, however, love irish potatoes and now that I have the pressure canner, I thought I'd try making my own. Quart jars would be nice for this purpose.
I hope I'll always have this problem of not having enough jars. It means my harvest is going well and we'll eat good this winter! May you be as fortunate! :o)
We have completely ran out of jars also. There are four dozen in the back of the van we just bought. They are mostly spoken for already.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good thing, congratulations.
Karl-- Congratulations to you, too! I just convinced the husband to go into town today, so I hope I get lucky and find some quart size ones. I usually get lucky and find some at yard sales, but I have not seen very many this year. It's also unusual to see the farm store sold out already, so I suspect there are more people canning around here. So despite the lack of rain, harvests must be doing well for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI've run out of jars too, twice this year! However, I don't can on the same scale as you do though I have put aside 100 jars of jams, jellies, chutneys and sauces this year which is much more than previous years.
ReplyDeleteDj-- I have never officially counted, but it's probably around 500 jars. I should count just to see how many I have. We made it to the store today and I bought 3 more cases of jars! I was relieved to see that walmart still has plenty of jars for sale so I'll probably go back in a week or two and pick up more jars. Looks like everyone is having a good canning season!! hooray!! :o)
ReplyDeleteJenny, where do you keep all your canned goodies? Do you have a basement??? Or a whole extra bedroom you store them in? That's a lot of jars!
ReplyDeleteKaren-- I keep them in the basement. We have a pretty big basement, and it's nice and cool down there. If we didn't have the basement, I would probably turn the utility closet next to the pantry into a canning jar closet and keep the overflow in the sunroom.
ReplyDelete