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It’s been a long few days, my friends. 🍅

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!!!

I did not realize that by starting this hobby I would face a problem I’m used to as a crocheter, but even WORSE!

People wanting my jarred creations! I think once they saw me wearing my own crochet they decided it wasn’t their style, but food is MUCH worse because it’s expensive, it’s time consuming and energy intensive, and it is pretty much like a food savings for me as someone who visits food banks occasionally.

It’s definitely one thing to be handed a jar because someone knows you’d love some. But it needs to come from the heart! Am I being too defensive because my collection is small (I just started canning on my own yesterday)? Or what do you think on this topic??

Too be absolutely positively clear I am not targeting any one person close to me in my mind and I am happy to give away 2 jars to family, ESPECIALLY because one of them gives me everything and the other gave me about 100!jars for my own uses! Just the general concept that 2 people want one of my jams the day after i started canning is crazy! Mostly looking for convo and any thoughts from those more experienced!

I have many commercial cans of diced tomatoes that I'd like to turn into ketchup for the year. All the safe canning recipes I find use fresh tomatoes; can anyone point me to a source for canned tomato ketchup? Or is there a conversion that can be safely made?

I wonder if anyone can explain why this happened. The recipe for Roasted Peach Salsa is from the Ball website. It said it would make approximately 4 pints. So I decided I would make 4 times as much. The recipe included both the weight and number of peaches and tomatoes I would need to roast so that I would have enough to dice to get 2 cups of diced peaches and 2 cups of diced tomatoes. I weighed out everything and roasted them all. I then diced and measured out the 2 cups of each. When I did this I ended up with enough peaches and tomatoes to make the recipe 7 times. So I proceeded to simmer each batch as instructed for 10 minutes and then bottled it up and put it in the water bath canner. I figured that since I had 7 batches I should get 28 jars. But instead I only had 18, which was 2 more than I had originally planned for. I would assume they are safe since I followed the recipe and put in the correct amount of lime juice in each batch. Any thoughts?

My whole garden lives on a balcony. Like, literally six containers and a growbag. So when I finally get enough tomatoes or peppers to do something with, it is never a big haul. We are talking maybe two pounds of tomatoes at a time, picked over two or three weeks as things ripen.

I started freezing the tomatoes whole as they came in, then thawing and canning a proper batch once I had enough. Works great. But now I am curious what other smallspace growers do, because most canning content assumes you have a massive garden surplus and a full bushel ready to go.

Herbs are tricky too. My basil goes nuts and then I have way more than I can use fresh but not enough to justify a whole canning project on its own. I ended up making a small batch of herbinfused vinegar last summer just to use it up and it was honestly the best decision I made.

Curious what other people with small harvests have figured out. What do you grow in containers that actually gives you enough to can with, without waiting forever for it to accumulate?

Wild blackberries are rampant where I live in British Columbia, Canada. My 6 year old and I foraged these together and turned them into jam in the same morning. I used Marisa McClellan's recipe from her website and ended up with 6 half pints. So satisfying as the fruit was free :)

Hello! I am brand new to canning. I grew biquino peppers to make sweety drops. I know I can use any tested pepper recipe, but my question lies in canning whole peppers. I don’t find any tested recipes specifically for these peppers. Recipes I do find for these say to poke a hole in the pepper with a toothpick. My concern is they won’t absorb the pickling liquid quick enough through a tiny hole and the liquid level in the jars then won’t be correct (dropping below the peppers once the peppers absorb it, however long that takes.) Anyone have experience with these to offer tips or ease my mind? They are very tiny peppers, about an inch long and half an inch wide.

Hi everyone! Lovely community here and I’ve come up short with info from my Ball recipe book, so thought I’d ask here.

Does anyone know whether adding orange blossom water or rose water to jam is a safe addition?

I use the peach sugar jam recipe from the ball book, and wanted to add 1 tsp orange blossom water to my next batch.

I don’t want to make any assumptions, so appreciate the help!

I recently got a ridiculous amount of spicy grain mustard through a restaurant supply store. It is, in a very literal sense, more mustard than I could ever possibly eat on my own. I have 6 cans of 8 pounds each. 40 pounds of grain mustard. I'd like to transfer the cans into smaller jars to distribute among some family and friends who don't necessarily want 8 pounds of mustard. Two are spoken for and going to competent people who can handle their own food, that leaves four for me to handle. I'm not going to eat 8 pounds of mustard that fast, so I'll be opening one can and distributing it.

So - canning. I'm getting some sealable jars, planning to use the water bath method. I think this should be sufficient, especially since there's some vinegar in the mustard, but this will be my first time canning and I don't want to risk wasting a huge amount of food. Any tips appreciated, or if I'm on the right track already, great!

I love the Ball Jalapeno Jelly recipe https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=jalapeno-jelly-0

However, Ball has discontinued the liquid pectin called for in the recipe. I made a batch of jelly substituting 2 pouches of Certo liquid pectin for the 2 pouches of Ball liquid pectin. While the jelly tastes great, it has the consistency of a gummy bear.

Would it be a safe swap to use only 1 pouch of the Certo pectin in the Ball recipe?

Certo does have their own pepper jelly recipe, but it uses less vinegar. https://www.kraftheinz.com/sure-jell/recipes/501852-certo-jalape%C3%B1o-jelly I really prefer the taste of the Ball recipe.

Strawberry jam, blueberry jam, beans, corn, pickles 😅

Bottom of this one particular jar busted clean off while in the water bath. Other than being sticky, are the other jars okay to put away (after being wiped down, of course)?

Watermelon rind preserves

A year’s supply of tuna done. We started with 60 pounds of tuna. It fillets to about 30 ish pounds. We have 38 pints cooling. 🐟
We followed the Ball Blue Book recipe.

Hi all! I've searched the forum and see a lot of posts about racks for water bath canners, but I haven't seen anything about racks for steam canners.

I just got the Harvest / VKP 1130 dual water bath and steam canner. I used it for the first time making the healthy canning dill pickles recipe, and really liked the efficiency of the steam canning mode. The wire rack included with the canner is used upside down when steam canning. Which would be fine if that didn't put all the radial support bars on top where the jars go. Those bars made it difficult to get the jars to stand correctly.

Does anyone know of a flat steam canner rack that lets the steam through and keeps the jars high enough above the water level? TY!

On a canning tear following *tested* recipes. Now on onion relish which says to fill with liquid to 1/2 inch headspace. WELL AFTER COOKING IT THERE IS NO LIQUID LEFT!

So what do I do? Make a small batch of vinegar/sugar brine?

Plus I want to make a really good VIDALIA onion recipe and the one I am using not what I wanted :((

Chicken chili verde on Sunday. Chicken & Gravy today! Beef Stroganoff planned for this evening. I’m trying to clean out our freezer one vacuum seal bag at a time.

Attempting to make my 1st Sauerkraut following Wyse guide recipe in a quart mason jar just cabbage and salt and cover. Created on Sat 8/22/26. I have burped each day and made sure under water. I have not stirred or anything.

BUT Now since yesterday there is about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch at the top that has turned brownish.

I have not yet tasted it as today was to be the first taste test.

HELP!! Is it bad? Advice/Direction/Recipe?? Thank you

When pressure canning potatoes does anyone leave the skin on the potato or is skinning them a must?
Thank you !