Canning Time

I just checked a new book out of the library called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kinsolver. It is about how her family lived off of the fruit of their land plus locally grown produce for a whole year. I'm just in the second chapter but I'm inspired.

My own garden is winding down for the year, but I just picked the last of the green tomatoes and turned them into green tomato relish. This is something that my relatives have made for generations and my aunt and uncle came to my house one summer and showed me how to make it. Mine will probably never be as good as theirs but it will do. They would save a bit from the previous years for a taste comparison so that it would be consistent. The relish is the only thing that I canned this year besides the pickles in a previous post. We usually freeze corn and pears and make fig preserves and blackberry jelly, but this was a drought year so the corn didn't make it and the late freeze got the pears and most of the figs.

Maybe next year will be a better gardening year and the freezer will be full. For this year we will have to make do with the farm stands and the grocery store. Homegrown tastes best.