Canning!! (or freezing!) need ideas

Jx2inNC

Songster
9 Years
Apr 30, 2010
503
6
136
Caraway, NC
We just planted our garden (at our new house) about a month ago and it actually looks really good so far!!
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I was a little worried since this was the first time making a garden spot at this house, how the soil would turn out, etc. but I think it is going to make it! So anyways, Jared bought quite a few extra tomato plants, and since they are all looking great I am thinking I am going to have enough tomatoes for all of the family/friends/strangers in our area. Does anyone have any ideas I may not be thinking of as far as canning? Here is what we planted, and here is what I normally can:

Apprx (20) - tomato plants ( parks whopper, cherokee purple, big boy, german queens, johnson, carolina gold, etc.)
(10) - pepper plants ( bell, jalapeno, cayenne )
(5-6) - pickling cucumbers (white, green)
(2) - zucchini ( help! I know nothing about zucchini!)
(4) - crook neck yellow squash
(1/2 row) - okra
(1 row) - green beans (1/2 blue lake, 1/2 half runners)

As you can see our garden is fairly small, but in the past I have had even smaller and still couldn't give it all away. I normally try to can: salsa, pickles, tomatoes (for soup), green beans. I also like to freeze corn & strawberries which I pick from friends. Zucchini is new for me this year. In the past I have not tried to do anything with squash or okra to preserve it. Any ideas anyone has on preserving squash, okra, zucchini would be greatly appreciated. If you have any recipes on freezing it, I would be interested in trying that this year so that I can fry it throughout the winter. Also would like other ideas on the tomatoes! I know you can make spaghetti sauce, but I have only tried it once when I was younger and I do not remember how it worked out. I also canned peppers last year, are there any other options out there for these?

Thanks guys!!!
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Quote:
I slice it and spread it out on a cookie sheet in one layer. Put it in the freezer for about an hour to harden, then rake it off the cookie sheet into some baggies. If you just slice and put it in bags the okra especially tends to stick together pretty badly. If you freeze it like I do you don't have that issue and can store it in ice cream buckets or anything in the freezer and only take out how much you want/need at a time. I do that with peas from the garden instead of using all those baggies. Things tend to get lost in the freezer in some of those smaller packages
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