Dealing With A Harvest Surplus—

Can You, Or Can You Not?

By Nancy K. Crevier

There is a progression to gardening. First, the contemplation of the plot. Then the actualization of the garden, thumbing through one after another seed catalogs, or browsing the seed rack at the local garden center. Once the seeds are selected, the soil is prepared, and the seeds are tamped gently into the soil, there is the excitement as the first sprouts nudge up through the soil. If insects and disease are held at bay, the seedlings stretch upward, the leaves unfurl, and blossoms appear. Warm nights and sunny days lead to the development of the fruits and then, suddenly, it is harvest time and the baskets are overflowing. Friends, family, and even the local food pantry begin to run and hide from the influx of berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. It creates a pleasant dilemma and the novice gardener may not think about the obvious solution to an excess of fresh produce: canning.

Along with drying, freezing, and salting, canning has long been the method of choice for many home gardeners to preserve the fresh flavors of summer and make the best use of a good harvest.

Canning preserves food by prohibiting the growth of micro-organisms and food enzymes, reducing moisture loss, and removing oxygen that leads to food spoilage. Processed at a very high heat in jars with tight lids, a vacuum is formed to safely preserve the food at a cool room temperature for several months. It is an art that just a generation or two ago was practiced by the majority of gardeners, and that fell into oblivion, along with the home vegetable garden, until recent high food prices created an upswing in the number of people testing out their green thumbs.

But careful practices must be followed when canning, or deadly toxins such as the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which causes food poisoning, can build up inside of the finished product. Many of the precautions are simple, however. Vegetables should be processed within half a day of picking when possible, ripe fruits within a day. Discard any spoiled or overly bruised produce, and cut away any small bruises. Washing and peeling produce reduces the number of bacteria, as does blanching, but the most important step is to carefully follow processing times as recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning can be viewed at uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.

Safety practices are constantly updated, so it is important to review the processing time guides each year. Oven canning, dishwasher canning, and other canning fads touted to make canning faster and easier are dangerous and should never be used. Only pressure canning or using a boiling water canner can control bacterial growth properly.

All low-acid foods, such as meats, fish, chicken, and most fresh vegetables either need enough acid in the form of lemon juice, citric acid, or vinegar added to lower the pH or they must be canned using a pressure cooker at 10 to 15 pounds per square inch of pressure, according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Pickles, jams, jellies, and fruits can safely be preserved by sterilizing the packed jars in a boiling water canner.

Sterilize Everything

Sterilize all equipment that will be used in the canning process, from jars and lids to spoons and ladles. Let them air dry to avoid cross contamination from a towel.

Properly filled canning jars and securely tightened lids are necessary to remove air that can reduce the quality and shelf life of the final product. Food processed in a pressure cooker can be raw packed, filling the jars full with clean, unheated food and topping off with boiling syrup or liquid. Blanched foods are covered with boiling liquid prior to processing in a boiling water canner, and is considered the best way to remove air and preserve the quality of the product over time.

Finding supplies for canning can be a bit of a mission, as Newtown resident Wendy Leon-Gambetta discovered when she decided this summer to make pickles. With her first garden in ten years producing prodigious quantities of cucumbers in early August, she was scrambling for pickling supplies. After scouring the town, she was able to come up with only jars and lids and other basic supplies. What she needed was a canner and rack, and it was nowhere to be found at local stores. When she finally widened her scope to nearby towns, she was able to come up with the canner and has been making quart after quart of — what she hopes will be — delicious pickles for her family to enjoy all winter long. A large glass pickling crock that she purchased has also made it possible for Ms Leon-Gambetta to make her mom’s brined pickles.

“I had considered getting an antique pickle crock, because I thought that would be neat, but then a friend pointed out that it could be glazed with lead or some other product that we would never use today because of the toxicity, so I decided not to take my chances and just got a new glass crock,” she said.

By the first week in September, her first batches of pickles were ready to be sampled, and for a first go around, said Ms Leon-Gambetta, “I’m generally pleased. It’s all a process of learning.”

Had she been looking for the canner just a few weeks later, Newtown Hardware on Church Hill Road could have saved her a trip out of town. Store manager Joe Summo said that the store carries the basic canning supplies such as jars, lids, paraffin wax, pectin, jar lifters, and strainers, and expected to have a supply of porcelain canners with racks in time for the big canning push.

Also in the center of town, the Big Y on Queen Street carries jars and lids and other basic canning supplies.

At Bethel Handyman Supply, Stony Hill Road, an ACE Hardware store owned by Ron and Carolyn Dufner, store employee Faye Nolan said that while the store stocks a limited amount of canning supplies, customers can order pressure canners or boiling water canners. “We get our orders in once a week, so there’s not a long wait,” said Ms Nolan. She also suggested visiting AceHardware.com to order supplies online. “The order can be shipped to our store at no cost and the customer can pick it up here, which is really nice,” she added.

A little further away, but well-known for being a purveyor of canning supplies, is Meeker’s Hardware on White Street in Danbury, where Gary Pyle said a full supply of canning needs are always available. “We have the Mason jars, lids, rings, canning pots, jar lifter, top tighteners, funnels, strainers, and cheesecloth. People know to come here this time of year,” said Mr Pyle. Meeker’s does not carry pressure cookers.

Canners And Kits

For pressure cookers or canning kits, several online services offer products. A complete kit ranges between $35 for supplies and a canner with rack to more than $100 for a kit with pressure canner. Jars and lids are additional, and cost approximately $1 a piece. Still, it is not a big outlay of funds for a long-term investment. With proper care, canners or pressure canners and other canning equipment should last many years. Only the jars, lids, and rings are an annual cost.

Nonetheless, Diane Hirsch, UConn Cooperative Extension Service food safety educator, cautions that canning or otherwise preserving homegrown food is not necessarily a way to save money. “Don’t be lulled into thinking that it is cheaper to grow and can than to buy things like tomato sauce at the supermarket,” she said. Along with the cost of the canning equipment, the time and energy put into actually growing the produce, and the cost of energy used during the canning process generally makes it more expensive for the home grower to put food aside in small quantities. What the home canner does have, however, is more control over the final product she said. “If you want to know just how much sugar or salt is put into something, you can control that by canning your own product,” said Ms Hirsch.

So far this year, the food expert has offered three workshops focused on putting food by, but at each class she has had only about one or two people new to canning or freezing. “The others have all canned or preserved before and are just looking to update their skills. I think there was a preconceived notion that more people would be wanting to learn to can this fall to save money,” she said. It is an important skill for gardeners who have ended up more successful than they expected and now have excess food on hand, though, said Ms Hirsch. “You don’t want it to go to waste, so people do need to know about food preservation,” she said.

 “It’s the most wonderful sound in the world when you take the jars out of the water bath and you hear that little ‘pop’ that means the jar has sealed. You think, ‘Ah. My work is done,’” said Carol Luf, a longtime Newtown resident. She and her husband, Skip, have been canning for more than 30 years, putting up 100 to 125 pints and quarts of pickles, apple sauce, sauerkraut, peaches, tomatoes, and chili sauce. The chili sauce recipe is a family recipe from Mrs Luf’s side, but other canning recipes come from Mr Luf’s aunt, Mildred Luf Smith, now 102 years old.

“Some of her recipes call for a pinch of this or a splash of that and we have to call her up and ask her, ‘Now how much is that?’” said Mrs Luf. “She’s sharp as a tack, though, and she always has the answer.”

Canning is not really hard, said Mrs Luf — as long as basic rules are followed — just time-consuming. The products that the Lufs make do not call for pressure cooking, but Mrs Luf emphasized that with a water bath, timing is crucial. “Make sure that the jars are covered completely by water, too,” she urged, and temper the jars with a run through a hot dishwasher before filling them, she suggested. “Otherwise, the jars can crack when you put them in the boiling water in the canner. Not only does it break your heart about all your hard work gone to waste, but you end up with quite a mess in the canner,” Mrs Luf said.

She also has found that by placing the new lids in a hot water bath before sealing the jars, it softens the rubber seal at the edge. “It seems to help the seal take,” she said.

“Basically, the canning process has not changed that much over the years,” said Mrs Luf. “We don’t do as much canning as when we had our boys at home, but we still enjoy it.”

Novice and experienced canners agreed that with time, patience, and care the overwhelmed gardener can turn summer produce into winter’s jackpot: yes, you can.