Well, with our nighttime temps threatening to fall below freezing this weekend, I think I can safely declare that summer is over. Like it or not, it’s time to rake the leaves, put away the garden solar lights and chair cushions, and just generally batten down the hatches, so to speak.
It’s time, too, to retire my canning equipment for the year. With the peak of harvest season now past, next weekend will be the last for many of the farmer’s markets in the area. Gone are the colourful tomatoes and peppers and fruits that provided the foundation for so much of my preserving…and my squirrel-like drive to store everything I could lay my hands on is beginning to ebb (much to my husband’s great relief!). I’ll make one final trip to my favourite farm stalls to stock up on the root vegetables, squashes, and cabbages that will keep in my semi-cold storage in the back of the garage, but other than that, I’m done. Good thing, too, because I was beginning to run out of shelf space again. 😉
For those of you who have been following my zombie apocalypse preparations, here’s the final tally of what made it onto the shelves:
9 pints ketchup
34 pints roasted tomato sauce
5 pints plain tomato sauce
49 pints canned tomatoes
20 pints tomato soup
10 half pints plus 10 quarter pints pizza sauce
26 pints salsa
19 pints black bean & corn salsa
6 pints dilly beans
25 pints dill pickles
4 pints dilled carrots
27 pints peaches
41 pints pears
6 half pints crabapple jelly
4 pints dilled carrots
26 pints vegetable soup
36 quarter pints tomato paste
10 half pints green tomato & apple chutney
9 half pints pear chutney
9 pints turkey soup (post-Thanksgiving)
And this is what it looks like on the shelves:
Not bad for a few (!) hours of labour in the kitchen, don’t you think? 😉
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