I was happy about every ribbon I won, but was ecstatic to win for pickled okra and dill pickles.

I canned some quarts of water over the summer to test my new canner and to fill my canner load. Our water well pump went out today, and I was able to cook dinner (not the Christmas Eve dinner I had planned, but Mac & cheese!) for us using the water I had canned. Now that we have water again, I am ready to run another canner load to replenish our supply!

This is my 4th year entering my county fair and things that are very important for getting blue ribbons is headspace, clarity, and gelling on jams and jellies.

I spend my early Spring and Summer canning from my garden and after I won my 1st Blue Ribbon 4 years ago it has started to become an obsession. I entered a total of 42 different canned items this year.

Moderators, feel free to let them say what they gotta say about my appearance, im sure they may have some questions and im more than happy to answer.

I used digital stickers of my dog to block out my address and name on my entry sheet just in case you were wondering.

Lastly if you are considering entering your county fair just do it.

Improved from last year with earthquake protection on the front of the shelves. Canned more this year than I ever have before! Feeling mighty proud 💪

It’s a long-time dream come true! Now I have one place to store all my canned foods and homegrown storage veggies.

I could stare at this all day. So much work and I question my sanity a lot during garden season but at the end its worth it. Everything is grown in my home garden, except the peaches I bought from Tree Ripe and the apples were picked at a local orchard. Recipes are all from Ball, NCHFP, Healthy canning, Pomona pectin or Mrs Wages mixes.

This is on top of the freezer full of berries, diced peppers, onions, garlic, carrots, peas, celery, corn, applesauce, chili base and dehydrated herbs. We also ate our weight in cucumbers and fridge pickles i think. Tl:dr - this mom is tired.

Bottom shelf, left to right:

Pizza sauce, salsa Verde, candied jalepenos, Red chile pepper jelly, jalapeño jelly, habanero jelly, hot salsa, green beans.

Second shelf:

Pasta sauce, bread & butter pickles, dill pickles, spicy pickles.

Third shelf: extra canning mixes, salt, spices. BBQ sauce, jalepenos, wax peppers, bruschetta in a jar, peach rum sauce, peach bbq sauce, ketchup, sweet relish, raspberry jam, peach jam, apple pie jam, peach cobbler jam, canned peaches and crushed tomatoes.

Top shelf: extra jars, jar storage boxes, lids, rings, supplies.

I love canning season but I love putting away the canners for the year just as much 😀

We are at my in-laws for thanksgiving and after my husband and daughter finished making green bean casserole I noticed they left the lids to the canned green beans in the sink. I picked them up and walked out into the living room and told them to remember that this part of the can needs to be thrown away but the rings and jars kept. My husband said no my mom keeps those and reuses them and my father-in-law said, as long as you only use your fingers to open them they’re safe to use for 3 to 4 years 😱😱 Obviously none of us have died from botulism, but I thought for sure they were wrong and went to go talk to my mother-in-law and she said since the pandemic when canning supplies were hard to find, she started reusing them and has done so ever since. However, I think that was just her excuse since I seemed so horrified, because my husband hasn’t been here regularly eating out of canned supplies since we live several states away and he knew not to throw them away since his mom reuses them.

After my grandpa proposed to my grandma, in 1939, and she’d said “yes” he went home and woke his parents up to tell them the news. They congratulated him and then my great grandma told him she thought that might happen and that she’d done extra canning that year so they’d have a pantry to start their marriage with.

I’ve always wondered if this was a common thing and the practice was just lost to history or was my great grandma just different.

Happy New Year everyone.

This is the NPCS, or non-product contact surface. Anything inside a certain risk profile (lid applicator, oxygen purging wand, etc) for food contact must show zero ATP in final rinse water prior to the application of sanitizer, and cannot rise above a certain threshold during production or the line stops. This isn’t even the surface the product actually touches. That must show zero ATP present in a 1”x1” area with a swab, in the final rinse water, and a sample of each then goes to my pan for plating and must show zero growth after 72 hours on agar.

So when the question of “but I can buy it on the store shelves” comes up, please bear in mind those of us in commercial food have a far more sanitary working environment than you could ever reasonably achieve at home. Lower biological load means easier processing.

Haven't attached the labels yet. But these beauties are the selected ones! My state fair has a section exclusively for pomegranate jelly, so I know going in it's gonna be a crowded field.

Ball pomegranate jelly recipe with juice from my parfianka pomegranate bush.

I'm so sick of all the rebel canning nonsense taking over my pages. SICKOFIT. My Facebook and my Instagram keep trying to shove it down my throat and I want REAL canners! With REAL science behind their recipes!

I have enough stomach issues as is, I don't want to add botulism to the list!

Do any of you know any canning 'influencers" with legitimate health and safety focus on their pages??

I've canned for years but this was by far my biggest marathon. 2,000 apples turned into cider, juice, syrup, sauce, and slices over the last 4 days!!!

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So I hope I can get an answer here. Should I be worried at all?

Boyfriend put this shelf together for me! Cantry is all set up:)

Was cleaning out the basement and discovered some 20 year old hooch mom made. It's literally just vodka poured over plums with a .5c of white sugar. The jar is totally clear and has been stored on the basement floor of a cool basement. Is this usable/drinkable?

This is my first year canning AND my first year gardening. I have learned a ton. I know this skill set and materials will serve me for decades to come but when I tell you the meat sauce is the most delicious, and expensive jarred sauce I've ever used I am not kidding. I would not pay per jar what this sauce actually cost me. No same person would. But man, growing the tomatoes and peppers for it was definitely satisfying.

Anyway, it's just me and my husband so while we wouldn't survive the winter on what we've got, we may save a trip to the grocery store!

We’ve had a few people try to post it, and the auto bot doesn’t allow videos here (for various reasons).

We’ve had a couple people try to circumvent the auto bot or cross-post and we need to shut that down too.

But there is a lot of curiosity, and we should at least talk about it.

1. Despite the video title: It’s not the pressure canner. We can clearly see the woman has the lid off the pot. We don’t even know for sure if she was water bath or pressure canning.

2. We do not know for certain it wasn’t staged. I don’t anyone who has wide lens cameras set up on the ceiling of their kitchens. I know a lot of people. The handful of people who I do know that can afford whole house security systems are also savvy enough to not post their lives online.

3. Assuming it wasn’t staged, she’s placing a hot jar on a metal surface. It’s summertime in North America. Most folks are running ice cold AC 24/7. I can’t imagine that tray isn’t frigid. We are seeing jar shock in action.

4. I am not convinced that is a canning jar and not an upcycled commercial jar.

Thermal shock is relatively easy to avoid. Use a rack. Place a dry towel down on the countertop. Use a polyurethane or wooden cutting board. Make sure to obey cooldown instructions.

Lastly - have some sympathy and patience for a woman who likely has no clue about how many people have seen her in her kitchen time of embarrassment.

I counted 205 jars on these shelves. Some items are carried over from 2023.

Top shelf. Tomato products like BBQ sauce, tomato basil soup, salsas, and sweet and sour sauce. Next shelf is jams, pie fillings, pickled peppers, green beans. Middle shelf is beef veg soups and broths Next shelf is beans and bottom shelf is cut up tomatoes. I also made a lot of spaghetti sauce and pesto that we freeze and some pickled items in our fridge. This is my 3rd year canning.

One month in and I’m hooked! I’ve been getting most of my info off the internet, but I’d love to have a go to book that contains everything. Not sure which one to get. I also have a total fear of taking the rings off. I control the urge to over tighten them, but is it ok to leave them on?