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Than you thank you, thank you ... this comes at a great time. Almost 10 bushel of tomatoes either ripe or will be there in the next 5 days. Why I planted 36 pepper plants for 3 .... other than its a guy thing ....

Last week we inherited my late mothers canning supplies. 500 jars, a pressure cooker that holds 10, 1 quart jars, and a hot bath pot. (terminology??)

We have a large standup freezer but it is full of ... gonna get some people PO’d here (put out) Bambi, (why do extioc dancers use a GUY’S name) Bambi’s Grand Daddy, some Elk and Canada’s best Walleye. Yeah .. I am the great white hunter on the side.

So thanks .. we appreciate any instruction we can get.

The only instruction I remember from my mother .. Get the HECK out of my kitchen when this cooker is on the flame. I think she was scared to death of that pressure cooker even though she put up enough garden goods to feed a family of 8 all winter and did it for over 65 years.

I was in the house the day that my mom's old pressure cooker blew. It was an old one with no pressure relief pop-off on it. The weight on the top of it bounced off a number walls and ended up in another room. The kitchen was a mess, and while my mom cleaned up, I retrieved the weight from the other room ( where I was when it blew) and hid it from her. I purchased for her, her first Crock Pot. I told her this is what everybody is doing now (in the 70's), and it will get stuff very tender also! She went on to wear out many slow cookers, never buying another pressure cooker.

I like pressure cooking, myself, and plan on buying my wife a modern pressure cooker, w/ pop-off valve.

I do still have all the parts and pieces of my mom's old time cooker :)

What a haul! Both from the garden and from Grandma!

I’ve never trusted pressure cookers, either. I know; it’s weird.

I want to try my hand at building a solar oven; not this summer, but in a NORMAL summer.

I’m going to be jumpin’ through my butt when all of my tomatoes come in. 30 plants, all loaded from top to bottom, just waiting to ripen up. They shouldn’t ALL ripen at once, but after the season we’ve had, I do not trust Mother Nature to be kind!

I did 30 pepper plants, too. The jalapenos are doing great, and the Fat-n-Sassy bells are also loaded. Cornon de Toro is looking wonderful, as are Banana Bill; both are sweet frying peppers.

We’ve gotten 3” of rain in the past two days and FINALLY have temps in the 80’s and 90’s, so I think my garden will finish off just fine. :)

When we had to dump a whole lotta pepper plants at work (we always have extra pepper plants; it’s a planned thing) I had my staff save all of the small peppers on them before they went to the compost pile. I had a grocery bag full of Yellow Hot Wax and Gypsy peppers and I made the most awesome pepper salsa for us to eat at work.

We also have three scruffy elderberry bushes growing in the fence line. I gave the maintenance guys strict orders to not touch them; I’ll harvest those berries when ripe and make us some Elderberry Wine for after hours. There’s an amazing amount of food to eat just in my nursery yard at work.

Waste not, want not! :)

Last week we inherited my late mothers canning supplies. 500 jars, a pressure cooker that holds 10, 1 quart jars, and a hot bath pot. (terminology??)

Please accept my condolences for your loss.

With that said ----- now I will express my total JEALOUSY!!!!

Canning was not something ever done in my family. In fact my mother made fun of me for doing it, even while she was enjoying the fruits of my labor. She thought it funny I would bring or send her stuff I had canned. She never understood how much I enjoyed doing things like that.