Country canning
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Tomatoes aren't convenient — neither is cabbage. Just about the time your cabbage in your garden is ready, it rains, and the heads get so inflated they threaten to split wide open. Just about the time the green beans decide to produce hot and heavy, you're due to go on vacation — at least that is what happened to us this year. And when you get back, what you have is green bean seed!
In late summer, the gardener is at the beck and call of his/her garden. If the tomatoes say, "I'm ready!" you trot right out there and pick them before the grasshoppers figure out they're ready and nibble on them like appetizers.
While I've been picking tomatoes right along, this past week I looked out upon my gardens (yes, I have two) and said, "We've got to can tomatoes."
When my mother came back to Kansas she made a deal with me. "You grow stuff and I'll can it!" That arrangement worked out pretty well.
Mom's house sports a huge pantry with shelves from floor to ceiling and I do believe she would purposely leave the doors wide open so that she could admire her accumulation of canned goods on the shelf. That pantry has been a work of art with all the red things on shelf #2 and the green things like beans and pickles and relish on shelf #3. Shelf #4 is smaller so the jams and jellies went on that shelf, shining like bright jewels of tempting sweetness.
In 2005, we had a tomato glut with neighbors donating tomatoes to the canning enterprise and when we added our bounty from 2006, tomatoes just about threatened to take over the whole pantry. "We won't have to can tomatoes for a while," Mom said. Maybe she was hoping that canning season would let up a little.
But here we are in 2007, and there are only a few pints of tomatoes still on the shelf. It's time to can!
Mom's always been fussy about how she canned things — especially tomatoes. They had to look a certain way. It was mandatory that they be dead, red, ripe. No ordinary water went on these tomatoes once they were peeled, she always used store-bought tomato juice to cover the plump red fruit. If you've ever tried it, you know how beautiful they look in the jars.
I lined up the tomatoes on the kitchen cupboard, got out the jars and sterilized them, located the extra stash of tomato juice Mom bought, found the lids and flats, borrowed Francis's canner kettle (again) and started the water boiling. We were ready to can!
Most of you know that my mom died in January of this year — long before I planted this year's garden or harvested these tomatoes. But I assure you, on any day in the country and I'm canning tomatoes, Mom is right there with us! "Don't fill those jars too full. They'll run over and won't seal," she cautions. "Did you add enough salt?" she wonders.
It's a little difficult to argue with her, at this stage, explaining that the tomato juice already has salt and we're using less salt these days. "You need to let them ripen longer," she admonishes. I know, I know — I just hate them setting around on my counter top so long.
Her pantry shelves are looking good! We did 14 quarts of tomatoes last night. It's a start! Mom would wonder how we did this without her, not realizing she's always with us. It's the nature of mothers.
