Norwood CSA Food Co-op: My Canning Story by Patrice Hall

My Canning Story

(It didn’t go as expected!)

by Patrice Hall

I decided to can plums this week. They were sitting in my fridge, and no one had plans to eat them. So, I cleaned my countertop, prepared my pots and utensils, and measured the sugar and water. I cleaned and sliced the plums, set them aside and prepared the simple syrup using the website https://nchfp.uga.edu/ (The National Center for Home Food Preservation) as a guide. I didn’t follow the instructions exactly, and I felt confident that I was going to get great results because I've canned 4 times already.

Washed red plums in a blue bowl.

I had eight large plums and three small plums, so I decided to slice the small ones in half and cut the large ones in fourths. This made the pieces about even, so I boiled them in the simple syrup (and I added some fruit juice I made from peaches from a previous share) while boiling the pint jars, then I went back to my computer and started working.

After about 20 minutes of work, I went back to the kitchen, the pot with the plums boiled over, spilling sticky syrup all over the left side of the stove. OMG! What a mess! Good thing I caught it before it got worse. I cleaned the area, filled the hot jars with the plums (which are shredded) and processed them in the hot water canner.

My reason for writing this is to demonstrate that we can still go ahead and can our produce even though it may not be picture perfect, it is still good produce which is better than what you can find in the supermarkets. It may even be the best plums I ever made, who knows?

I still plan to pickle the green beans and other veggies we get in our shares; my husband loves pickled produce. When I do, I will write about those experiences as well. I used the following ingredients and materials for canning the plums:

2 cups sugar (used for simple syrup)

4 cups water

32oz. fruit juice (made with peaches and sugar)

4 pint Ball canning jars with lids and bands

For the taste test (moment of truth) I will wait until my son tries a jar and see what he thinks 😊