I’ve been home for two days now with two sick kids. The youngest keeps me hopping with requests delivered in a quavering voice and I have had to break up a couple of fights over the couch. Needless to say, I have gotten very little accomplished.
I did get a chance to arrange the canned goods and take stock.
Making a list of my canned goods for the season helps me plan for the garden year to come. If I finish the winter with far too much of one thing and not nearly enough of the other, I can plan my gardening and canning accordingly.
For me, the key will be keeping the list in a secure spot. I had a great garden notebook, but my youngest found it and made it her own. I think I’ll hide my canning guide in the canning cupboard, far away from the art supplies and paper stash.
My list was both informative and a little shocking.
I was able to count up the cans of tomato puree and chopped tomatoes and estimate how many times my family would be likely to eat recipes that call for those ingredients. I feel pretty confident that my efforts will cover those needs. A tour of the garden, a check on the ten-day weather forecast, and the list helped me to decide what to do with the rest of the season’s tomatoes. It looks like I’ll be making more barbeque sauce.
On the shocking end of the spectrum was the number of jars of spaghetti sauce I’d put up for the winter. In my effort to find a sauce that my whole family liked, I canned thirty-one jars of sauce, over twenty-one quarts! Thank goodness I have big boys who are good eaters. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to go through all that sauce.
I am not sure how long home canned goods last, but I am certain they keep for more than one year. I’m confident my grandchildren won’t be tossing my apple butter supply.
Better check your supply though! Not difficult to go crazy with canning.
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