Home canning Grand mother knew best

As a child I remember hot summer days picking green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries and many more fruits and vegetable for my mother to can. The time it took seemed like a lot of work. The reward was when we'd chow down on bread and butter pickles with our lunch sandwich or see those chunks of strawberries as we spread the jam on our morning toast made it well worth the effort.

Store bought canned foods have about a 1 year shelf life. Home canned foods also have about a 1 year shelf life. The difference is the taste is like night and day. If your planning to bunker down for a long winter and store food from your own garden or local farmers market canning seems like the best way to go. Freezers are limited as to how much food can fit into them. If the power goes out for more then a couple of days all of the food must be tossed out. With canned goods any cool dark area will be fine to place your stash.

If you have never canned before take some time to really look over this site. Print out the steps needed to do your own home canning. Stock up on all the items that will be needed and be sure to have extra lids so when those jars empty out and the early crops are ripe for the picking you will also be ready. As the stores start to restock canning supplies for the following year you will only need to purchase a limited amount of suppiles to start all over again.

Summer time is the time to buy your supplies while the stores are well stocked and the prices are down. As the growing seasons comes to an end you will find it harder to find all the items you may need but you might also start to find sales prices. So keep and eye on the store you purchase your supplies at, when the inventory is no longer being restocked buy buy buy.

Yard sales are a great place to find canning supplies be sure the jars are not chipped and that equipment has all working parts. If there are parts missing pass on the purchase since it will be hard to find the parts you'd need.

http://www.canningpantry.com/