I don't know about you, but fall means canning season at my house. I can't say I LOVE canning but I really like the end products, especially canned peaches. So the other day I canned 35 quarts of peaches and I love how they look on my pantry shelves. I was trying to finish all my peaches in one day, but I ran out of time. So yesterday I canned 6 more and now I'm really done.
About 6 years ago or so, I worked a shift at a cannery. My church really believes in self-reliance but also in helping people who don't have enough, so they have a pretty amazing welfare system. And one part of the system is the canneries where they can food so they can give it out later to people in need. They recruit volunteers to get the work done, so I helped one afternoon with canning peaches. I learned a lot of respect for people who do this kind of work full-time. It's very tedious and tiring. I was helping to sort the fruit and staring at peaches for an hour or two can make you feel pretty dizzy. Fortunately I got a different job for the rest of the shift.
I also learned why the canned peaches don't taste as good as the home-bottled kind. The peaches that are commercially canned are picked when most of them are almost ripe so a lot of them are still kind of green. So if you can your own peaches you have a lot more control over the quality.
I was thinking about this when I was canning peaches on Friday. Sometimes, I have been fortunate enough to can peaches off my own trees. But we don't have my most productive tree any more, so I had to buy them. I bought one-half bushel at the grocery store and I think they were picked just a little too green which made it harder to peel them. And they probably aren't as sweet. That was a little frustrating.
I bought another bushel from a local fruit stand. This fruit stand has excellent produce and is not that cheap, but they sell boxes of "seconds" for $9. Some of those peaches ended up being a little overripe but generally they were pretty good. So all in all, I got 41 quarts for about $30 in peaches (1.5 bushels) with about 6 hours total work, not counting processing time. I don't know if you save much money canning if you have to buy the peaches. But hopefully the quality is better. And they're really beautiful in those jars!
About 6 years ago or so, I worked a shift at a cannery. My church really believes in self-reliance but also in helping people who don't have enough, so they have a pretty amazing welfare system. And one part of the system is the canneries where they can food so they can give it out later to people in need. They recruit volunteers to get the work done, so I helped one afternoon with canning peaches. I learned a lot of respect for people who do this kind of work full-time. It's very tedious and tiring. I was helping to sort the fruit and staring at peaches for an hour or two can make you feel pretty dizzy. Fortunately I got a different job for the rest of the shift.
I also learned why the canned peaches don't taste as good as the home-bottled kind. The peaches that are commercially canned are picked when most of them are almost ripe so a lot of them are still kind of green. So if you can your own peaches you have a lot more control over the quality.
I was thinking about this when I was canning peaches on Friday. Sometimes, I have been fortunate enough to can peaches off my own trees. But we don't have my most productive tree any more, so I had to buy them. I bought one-half bushel at the grocery store and I think they were picked just a little too green which made it harder to peel them. And they probably aren't as sweet. That was a little frustrating.
I bought another bushel from a local fruit stand. This fruit stand has excellent produce and is not that cheap, but they sell boxes of "seconds" for $9. Some of those peaches ended up being a little overripe but generally they were pretty good. So all in all, I got 41 quarts for about $30 in peaches (1.5 bushels) with about 6 hours total work, not counting processing time. I don't know if you save much money canning if you have to buy the peaches. But hopefully the quality is better. And they're really beautiful in those jars!
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