What are you canning now?

[ozark hen]

Quote:
Please post pics! We have honeysuckle growing everywhere here and I will start picking and trying this out. Thanks for being the guinea pig Proud of you!

 

[vfem]

Here is the somewhat impressive Honeysuckle Jelly canned. It has more of an orange tint to the color then I think the picture shows.

Here's some strawberry I made the other day as well.

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
Please let us know how this turns out. You are our guinea pig on this. Sounds wonderful but it may be like eating perfume? LOL

Very nice looking in the jar too, Vfem.

This same recipe works great with other flowers - clover, lilacs, violets, dandelion, roses, kudzu blossoms, etc. This year I'm TRIPLING the amount of these I'm making because they sold out so fast at the farmers markets last year. Customers bought them and then came back for more, wiping us out. OK...LOL...it was kinda fun to see something be such a big hit.

This year, I've already made 4 batches of lilac jelly and froze extra juice/infusion. I might make the clover this week if I can get the bossoms collected before DH has time to mow.

 

[Kim_NC]

Quote:
That sounds like a large & very nice garden for your family! (Ours is much larger too, but that's because we sell produce in addition to growing/canning for ourselves.) Your 13 tomato plants would produce plenty to both eat fresh and can if they do well. And the past 2 years I planted only 4 tomatillos, canned all the salsa verde I wanted and still sold some fresh tomatillos!

You could continue with what you have and see how it goes for the season. You can always go to a local market and get additional produce for canning if you find you're short of something. Then adjust what you plant next season. It seems like there are always adjustments to be made to the garden plan every year. But the anticipation of how the yields will turn out also helps to make it fun!

 

[vfem]

Hey Kim, do you do the white or red clover? I think I want to try this next. I am going to do some dandelion for sure too. I should have enough for clover. How does it taste? I know I live clover honey. Mmmmmmmmm

 

[Dragonfly Ranch]

Quote:
Please let us know how this turns out. You are our guinea pig on this. Sounds wonderful but it may be like eating perfume? LOL

Very nice looking in the jar too, Vfem.

This same recipe works great with other flowers - clover, lilacs, violets, dandelion, roses, kudzu blossoms, etc. This year I'm TRIPLING the amount of these I'm making because they sold out so fast at the farmers markets last year. Customers bought them and then came back for more, wiping us out. OK...LOL...it was kinda fun to see something be such a big hit.

This year, I've already made 4 batches of lilac jelly and froze extra juice/infusion. I might make the clover this week if I can get the bossoms collected before DH has time to mow.

I have also used Lavender for jelly and it was good - more perfume tasting than sweet. We had planted 250 plants along our drive way and within two years the moles and gophers had destroyed them all

Darn things.

I was so looking forward to making Kiwi jams/jellies and Chutneys from our Kiwis that have taken 4 years to mature to bloom. Although we bought males and females it appears that we got ALL females. Heartbroken that we have to wait another 4 years to get fruit after we add a male plant. Oh well, our honey bees are going crazy for the flowers so may be we will get the benefits through the honey.

Sandee

 

[Patchesnposies]

Canned 12 pints of corn cob jelly yesterday. It was my first time. I used sweet corn cobs that I had cut the corn off of for a chowder, and they made a nice delicate yellow colored jelly. The flavor was good, but I think I used too much water to boil the cobs without realizing that it would dilute the flavor.

I plan to try again, and perhaps use orange blossom or rose water.....as the corn cob jelly flavor seemed like it would lend itself nicely as an under current to another delicate flavor. However, I will make it once more just following the regular recipe to see if it has more flavor when I use the proper amount of water. LOL

I also made 24 pints of strawberry rhubarb jam.

 

[MissPrissy]

I am canning rose petal jam.

http://bigredcouch.com/journal/

 

[ozark hen]

Quote:
Miss P...does it taste per-fumy? I have never tasted a flower jelly and am curious as to the taste.

 

[Dragonfly Ranch]

I wanted to mention that the new canning book that I got from the University of Georgia is great. If you want a really complete reference book with nice recipes and directions, this book covers it all.

Sandee