Posted by: Dawn
It's that time of year again, the harvest of all the gardens.
My peas stopped producing around the first of August, though I didn't expect to do much with them but eat and be merry, we canned about 6 pints that we didn't feel like eating.
And this is the reason why, beans, beans, and more beans. Understand....my kitchen sink is one big sink instead of two. It took me about a hour to snap both ends of each bean and then another 45 minutes to chop.
My canner is very, very old, it was given to me from a friend, we figured we had to change some of the contraptions that are built-in on the top. We also ran a test run the night before, my husband pressurized the canner to 20 lbs to see if the emergency valve and the back-up emergency would work. "What da ya mean?" "You were trying to blow them off!?" Everything worked out well though, I have replace a petcock with a regulator that will jiggle when too much pressure is applied, that is....it pops pressure out every time it jiggles/jumps. Best thing I could of done.
So here we go with the beans and of course we want salt, of course I ran my jars on the sanitizing cycle of the dishwasher and, of course I boiled the lids.
The nice thing about this regulator is a small tilt will let all the steam out, unpressurizing the canner. I had never canned before so this was incredibly neat to me, not to mention my veggies were ready to come out!
We were quite proud of the audible pop the peas made when the lids became sealed, they actually don't do this until they cool down. It was fun, but then again, after all the growing, prep and worry, something as little as a small pop would make you laugh.
Until the next time 'round, see ya In the Garden.
It's that time of year again, the harvest of all the gardens.
My peas stopped producing around the first of August, though I didn't expect to do much with them but eat and be merry, we canned about 6 pints that we didn't feel like eating.
And this is the reason why, beans, beans, and more beans. Understand....my kitchen sink is one big sink instead of two. It took me about a hour to snap both ends of each bean and then another 45 minutes to chop.My canner is very, very old, it was given to me from a friend, we figured we had to change some of the contraptions that are built-in on the top. We also ran a test run the night before, my husband pressurized the canner to 20 lbs to see if the emergency valve and the back-up emergency would work. "What da ya mean?" "You were trying to blow them off!?" Everything worked out well though, I have replace a petcock with a regulator that will jiggle when too much pressure is applied, that is....it pops pressure out every time it jiggles/jumps. Best thing I could of done.
So here we go with the beans and of course we want salt, of course I ran my jars on the sanitizing cycle of the dishwasher and, of course I boiled the lids.
The nice thing about this regulator is a small tilt will let all the steam out, unpressurizing the canner. I had never canned before so this was incredibly neat to me, not to mention my veggies were ready to come out!
We were quite proud of the audible pop the peas made when the lids became sealed, they actually don't do this until they cool down. It was fun, but then again, after all the growing, prep and worry, something as little as a small pop would make you laugh.
Until the next time 'round, see ya In the Garden.
