Failure is an excellent teacher. I don’t know how many times I’ve reminded other ladies to take in their pressure canner gauges to the county Extension office before canning season, and have done it diligently over the years. Well… yesterday I grabbed 10 lbs. of green beans at the Farmer’s Market since I don’t think I’m going to top the 28 lbs. in the freezer I had last year. I planned to can them. I don’t like the canned beans as well as frozen, but I’m always concerned about having the freezers puke out due to mechanical failure or power loss (another reason to buy a generator) and losing all of my hard-earned food. So I want to can more of it, and figured I’d do at least one batch of beans.- I decided to do a hot pack on the beans, and cut them into roughly one-inch lengths to make them easier to pack tightly into the jars. My greatest challenge during canning is having big enough pots, and frankly a big enough stove. I have serious range envy this time of the year, and lust over those gorgeous six-burners. So I decided to start with a half-batch to work out the kicks in estimating amounts and getting my groove on again when it comes to the fill and seal dance. It’s a good thing I did.
When using the pressure canner, besides checking the gauge to make sure it works, you keep the water just below a boil so when you’re ready to go it won’t take long to pop back up there. The nice thing is there are only a couple of inches of water making the process much faster than heating up a full hot water bath. Once you place the jars in the canner and seal it shut, it’s a matter of venting the steam for 10 minutes before adding the weight and bringing it up to pressure. Then you time it while making sure it stays at the desired pressure. Needlesstosay, I never got that far. The dial hung at 20 lbs. of pressure and never budged. I shut off the heat and removed the lid when the pressure was down. Those beans were already well blanched. I dumped them in the colander, rinsed them with cold water and froze them. Then I boiled another big pan of water, blanched the rest of the beans and froze them, too. Ah well, it’s another half dozen bags in the freezer.
Thankfully, Amazon came through for me again. I ordered another gauge that fits the Presto canner so hopefully by Tuesday I’ll have it, and will promptly take it into the MSU Extension office to have one of the ladies test it for me!
Tags: canning pressure canning, green beans, Presto canner
Amy, your blog is seriously changing my life! I’m really enjoying follwoing your experiences gardening and living in MT. I read your article in Hobby Farms “Fashionably Late” and found it so interesting. I live Anaconda and this is my second year growing a garden here. Thank you so much for your insight on how to extend our short Montana growing season. I’ve found that one of my biggest challenges is timing. I would like to get a little advice from you; I covered my zuccini plants with plastic last night because they were forcasting near-frost temps here, I didn’t get home to cover them until about 9pm and they froze in the night without anything else in the garden getting frost. Did I trap the moisture under the cover by by covering them too late in the evening, or is plastic a poor cover choice? I’m broken-hearted about the plants because I could have had squash for a weeks yet, but would like to learn from the mistake……any advice? Thanks so much for your writing and sharing your experiences.
Hello Angela!
Thanks so much for touching base, although I’m sorry to hear about your poor zucchini. That’s always heartbreaking. I’d say the plastic was the problem. It doesn’t provide much protection. Blankets or sheets are actually better, although my favorite is the polyspun floating row cover. The heavier fabric can actually give you an extra 4 degrees of protection if it’s going to frost. It’s wonderful, wonderful stuff! I covered my Hungarian peppers just to keep them warm and happy for a couple of more weeks. They definitely like the warm nighttime temps, which are fleeting, so it’s a great tool to have on hand. Same with the tomatoes. When it starts chilling off at night and I’m still waiting for ripe tomatoes, I wrap and cover the plants with the floating row cover to aid the process. Anaconda is a challenging area… and not to sound overly cautious, have you have your soil tested? I’ve spoken with one lady who had to build all raised beds because the soil had a lot of heavy metals. Crazy to even consider, but let me know if you have any questions about sending off soil samples. Thanks again for writing. Congratulations on your gardening endeavors, and feel free to send any questions along the way. Best, Amy
Thanks Amy! I’ll find some of those covers, anything to stretch out our season here. I still have so much to learn….and gardening in Anaconda is a little tough. Our frost dates are never predictable. I also built raised beds because I’m using the square foot method. I live and work at the fish hatchery and all the soil is backfill from who-knows-where. I actually met Grant a couple months ago when he came down to get a tank from us, I was thrilled when I figured out that you guys were the same Grisaks! I’m having a great time perusing your blog, and I’m very inspired by the way you and your family are so self-sufficient and keeping traditions alive…..definitely something to aspire to.
I need to read all of my comments! That’s so funny! Oh good – I’m glad to hear you’re “building up” when it comes to the gardens in that area. I think once you start using those row covers you’ll want to use them on everything. I’m already planning to install some sort of drip irrigation and keep most everything covered throughout the summer. It’ll help with the heat-lovers, plus I want to keep those stinking grasshoppers off of my stuff. They were at Biblical proportions this season. Well, I better run because I have to get my peppers pickled. That will be the next post. Thanks so much for touching base, and hopefully I’ll get to meet you someday, too!