First Day of Canning Downstairs

Yesterday I canned ALL day. I ran two loads in the big canner and one load in the small canner – 36 pints of carrots.

The griddle sits in the center but the big canner hung over a bit onto the griddle so I removed the griddle just to be sure I wouldn’t damage it.

Since I started about 6:30 a.m., I was able to get probably 22 pounds of carrots peeled and cut. I saved about 3 pounds to use over the next week

The little sink worked so well! The water that drains from the sink goes into the garden and I move the hose around from time to time. There was nothing greasy or gross – just washing carrots and running water to rinse jars. It’s not but a few steps farther to walk from where I’m canning in the garage to where this sink is compared to where I walk from the stove to the kitchen sink upstairs.

In Texas, I filled the canner with the garden hose, and that water hadn’t gone through the water softener so I was in the habit of remembering to put a bit of vinegar in the water but here, I’ve been canning in the kitchen and using softened water so I haven’t been adding vinegar. I thought about it at one point and brought a gallon of vinegar downstairs but then forgot to use it with the first load and ended up with the jars that had to be cleaned.

All in all, everything went pretty much as I had planned. I need to get more of those white wash tub things I was using. I have two of them. I put carrots in one, scraped them, then put the washed, sliced carrots in the other one. I did it in batches. Scraped probably 10 pounds of carrots, then washed and sliced them, then washed 12 jars, then filled those jars. I think next time, I’ll scrape, wash and cut ALL the carrots, then fill ALL the jars, then can ALL the jars. It was like I was having to go through all the steps three different times and I ended up washing and re-washing a lot of things I wouldn’t have had to wash so much if I’d done all of everything before moving on to the next step. I’ll do better next time.

I was planning on canning the deconstructed bell pepper soup today but I think I may sit and cross stitch!