How many jars??

[jenn3514]

After venturing into canning last year, and finding that we love the results, dh and I have decided we would like to put up about 76% of your fruit/veggie intake this year.
I know that I'd like to can a minimum of 6 dozen jars each of peaches and apples. I'm also putting up jams,butters, pickles, relishes, corn, green beans, tomatoes and peas. Anything else would likely be frozen, I'm debating on freezing or canning tomato sauce. I'm thinking at least 25 dozen jars, but that sounds like such a large number.
We gift jellys, butter and pickles along with our own consumption.

[RiverRock]

I used to be obsessed with canning (about 2 children ago ). If you want to can that much you might want to consider freezing fuit to make jam in the winter months. I usually can about half the amount of peaches you plan to can and that is enough for us. I can't imagine eating more than a jar a week around here, and it's nice to run out in the Spring to look forward to fresh peaches again. I usually slice and freeze apples into pie portions in Ziploc bags. I"ve canned apple sauce before, but I have found that it is easy to use a bag of apple slices and let them simmer to a sauce to serve warm with dinner. I used to pressure can soups and chili, but now I freeze chili in flat Ziploc bags and freeze stock for soup in plastic containers. While I love to can, I don't do as much as I once did. My regulars for canning are: peaches, plums, cherries, tomatoes, chutney, salsa, and jams. I want to try canning spiced beans this summer...maybe wasabi beans. I'm not trying to talk you out of so much canning. I have just come to realize that in the summer and early fall, it is hard to spend days on preserving food, and canning is hard to do with young children underfoot. This past summer was the first time in years I didn't have to "farm out" children to my in-laws to get canning done.

[jenn3514]

Thanks! I have been considering doing more freezing, but we are already almost out of freezer space, and plan to buy half of a cow. I'm not sure that I could talk dh into a second freezer. Peaches and apple sauce are huge with my little ones, if I'm not careful ds would eat a jar of either, so I'm thinking that a total of 2 or 3 quarts weekly would work. Our peaches don't usually come out until late july, early august- we don't get much more than strawberries until late june early july. Freezing the fruit for jam would work though, we do freeze chili and stock also. Now you've got me thinking.........