Posted on 08/20/2022 4:55:49 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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A friend I worked with, and his wife, decided to can peas. They filled the mason jars, and lacking a canner vessel to put the jars in, he just put the cans into the stove oven and turned it on. They just made one crucial mistake; they screwed the jar rings down tight. When the first jar exploded the rest all went off. It blew the oven door off, and they were still finding peas and shards of glass all over the house years later.
Sorry! Your pix didn’t show up at first. GMTA! :)
Its been a strange growing season here in 7a outside philly. Everything was looking good from the green house. No zucchini, hardly any cucs, few tomatoes, lots of melon being devoured by the mice. corn was eaten alive by the ants. Had lots of green beans. Broccoli did not broc. Hot red peppers are doing good. Few green peppers (but i never get green peppers. Winter squash seems to be doing great. Got the first batch of raspberries after putting the nets up for the birds. A lot more sun after july 4 as we took down 7 huge trees.
Without pressure, the liquid contents can’t reach temperature.
New meaning to “Have to pee so bad I could explode!”
Rather than getting into the ‘weeds’ this morning on my garden, or regale you with my dog & chicken sitting adventures this past week, I’ll leave you with some thoughts from “The Heirloom Gardener” ... a site I found on Facebook (Yeah, I know “FakeBook” yuck ... only friends are family so I can see the babies grow up). It’s “The Heirloom Gardener” Jon Forti. I love the pics (art) he posts & the quotes he pairs with them are often meaningful.
Here’s something he posted a couple of days ago:
“Becoming a person of the plants is not a learning process, it is a remembering process. Somewhere in our ancestral line, there was someone that lived deeply connected to the Earth, the Elements, the Sun, Moon and Stars. That ancestor lives inside our DNA, dormant, unexpressed, waiting to be remembered and brought back to life to show us the true nature of our indigenous soul.”
~Sajah Popham
He also posted a watercolor recently entitled “Late Summer” - very busy, but it’s like a garden in the late season ... I love the “jumble” of it & all the butterflies:
http://www.maggievandewalle.com/store/p46/Late_Summer.html
For those of you who enjoy (even love) chickens, here is a very handsome one with a bee (FB link, not on her website yet - public so you should be able to see it):
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=620878232732246&set=a.206267024193371
Note: I like a lot of her work, very distinctive style - some of it has a “dark” vibe that’s not my thing, but others are pretty cool.
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My favorite watercolor artist these days (I could FILL the walls with her paintings, flowers in particular because of the colors) is here ..... you won’t be sorry if you take the time to look through her work. She has what I would call a “loose” style with ‘washes’ of color ....I like art that tends toward realistic depictions of what is being painted and her work is realistic enough for me.
Flowers:
https://www.susancrouch.com/collections/154355
A faborite flower pic “Everlasting”
https://www.susancrouch.com/portfolio-viewer?collection=154355#lg=1&artworkId=3948735
Animal Kingdom:
https://www.susancrouch.com/collections/154361
Favorite (sunflower/goldfinch) “Sunshine on my Shoulder”:
https://www.susancrouch.com/portfolio-viewer?collection=154361#lg=1&artworkId=3948999
Back to the reality of my late summer - word of the day (maybe the weekend): Mowing
So it did? Have to have plenty of those for the coming Bidet economic collapse LOL.
Broccoli did not broc.
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I don’t know why that struck my funny bone, but it did.
Anyway, I’m 7a too, but further south. Bush beans got eaten up by something (a million holes in each leaf), cuke vines died as soon as they started bearing, green peppers aren’t doing squat (I never get good green bell peppers either), a few jalapenos .... not enough for poppers or making hot pepper jelly; however, tomatoes are doing ok. We got enough to give away some ... vines currently dying back.
The only thing that did super well were zinnias I planted from last year’s seeds ... looks like some giant sunflowers (planted end of June) from a last year’s giant seed head might also flower in the next couple of weeks. The goldfinches will be happy - hope I can keep the squirrels out of them.
We had a about a month of “dry” where I had to water at least every other day or the plants just burned up ... then we got 4-5 inches of rain in a week and a half which caused a host of other issues. Last week was cool, low humidity after several weeks of brutal, upper 90’s (heat index 105-109) high humidity misery. CrAzY weather.
Wishing you (and me!) a ‘more productive’ garden next year.
Never seen one that didn't go to 15 lbs. My Presto has two removable weights for the weight assembly.
5lbs with no added weights + 5lbs with one weight = 10lbs + 5lbs for two weight = 15lbs.
Since I'm just barely over 1,000 above sea level, that forces me to use 15lbs when the 1,000 or less would call for 10lbs so I did the same as you. Found a couple of thick washers to add to the 10lb assembly.
150 degrees? Maybe you meant 250? Water boils at 212 and pressure raises the boiling point. I thought they ran at about 240 degrees at 15lbs.
My three piece weight, https://www.healthycanning.com/presto-pressure-canner-3-piece-regulator-weight/
5 lbs, add one weight for 10 lbs, add the second weight for 15 lbs.
Yes, thank you for the temperature correction.
I have an old one with the 3 part weight. Love it. I purchased a new canner for expanded processing capacity.
A popular canning trick for higher volume is to have two canners. Prep food/jars and get one going and while that’s processing, prep food/jars for the second canner. By that time, the first is done or close to it and you get it going again while waiting for the second and so on. Very little down time.
Another trick in good weather is to can outdoors using a coleman propane camp stove or what have you. I have a two burner coleman but the burners are too close together to run two canners at once.
I don’t know if the turkey fryer burners have enough control for canning but they might work.
If the lid leaks or blows outdoors, it’s not as bad, as long as you’re not close to it. If you’re doing things right and make sure there’s no clogged vent holes, it’s doubtful that anything would blow.
I knew you meant 250 and I had 240. Seems we're both right.
https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/usda/GUIDE01_HomeCan_rev0715.pdf
Quick glance at some recipes - some recipes call for 11 lbs with a gauge type canner and force you to use 15 lbs for weighted. That's why I found a couple of washers that weighed 1/5 of what one of the weights does and called that 1 lb of pressure and added to a single weight for 11 lbs.
I don't recommend it. I'm just crazy so that's what I do.
My folks had one when we lived in Japan with the US Army.
I inherited the thing.
Always thought it would explode...
I had the 2 story pressure cooker. When it got to be the 2 of us I gave it to a friend who still uses it. Its either water bath or freezer.
I hear you. After coffee no breakfast I picked and have put up shishito peppers, broccoli, Chinese long beans and just getting some late breakfast early lunch. Then canning tomatoes.
I’m 7a (Georgia) and I had almost the same results this year. I normally have boatloads of zucchini, this year just two. Lots of male flowers but few female,
Green beans did as usual, tomatoes were hit hard by blight (Cherokee purples did better than the others). Caught a few rats in the trap, I guess that was eating my low hanging tomatoes. I set two traps out, one for larger critters and one for smaller cause we didn’t know what we were dealing with.
Jalapeños doing well, bell peppers just now ripening.
My spaghetti squash that I planted did poorly but some that came in wild are prolific. This year I have normal looking squash and watermelon looking squash on the same vine. My corn did well. My planted blueberries produced nothing (I learned my ph is too high). But my wild blueberry plants were full.
Go figure.
Question for everyone. I have some pickle worms on some of my spaghetti squash, just 1-2 tiny holes. Is there anyway to still preserve this squash if I get the worms out? I was wondering if I could just cover the little holes, cure it and store it? Otherwise I will have to cook it all and freeze it.
Same here... a bit crazy.
There is an inverse relationship between temperature and time. I experimented with it based upon research journal articles. Actually used 20 lbs of pressure when experimenting. Had no problems.
I wanted to can meats and vegetables that are NOT normally home canned. If they can can it commercially, then I can can it at home. I just needed to figure out how.
I have an unlimited supply of produce as I am close to three large commercial wholesale produce auctions and our office handles over 600 horse & buggy Mennonite and Amish produce farmers.
When the harvest peaks with abundance, we process as much as possible ASAP.
I expect that in the future, electric will be on and off and don’t want to rely on refrigeration and freezers. It is a lot of work to process a deer, cow, or pig with no refrigeration.
(We can our sausage and bologna. )
BTTT!!!!
I believe it was Greeneyes who pressured canned a lot of neat. My late aunt who lived on a lake canned salmon in jars. Looked fabulous but she never offered me one :(
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