Canning peaches

I am a week late in posting this, but better late than never.  Our peach trees produced for the first time this year, as I had previously posted, but being so small, they were not what I had wanted for canning halves.  In past years, I have always put my name on a call list at one of the local orchards for when their Michigan Red Haven peaches come in.  They are great peaches and freestone for easy pitting.  When they came in, I bought a bushel specifically for canning.

Here is one basket ready to be put in the boiling water.  We use our turkey fryer for this.

Part of the end product.  30 quarts that will taste so awesome when snow is flying.  :) 

Preservation day

Today has been a very productive day in terms of preserving our garden's bounty.  Today's totals included:

• 34 one cup bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer
• 13 pints of canned carrots
• 14 cups of peach freezer jam
• 17 cups of frozen peaches
• 4 pints of peach butter

Thanks to Bill for being such a great helper.  I had already shredded the zucchini and cut the tops off of the carrots and washed them, but he helped with carrot peeling, peach peeling and pitting.  Two sets of hands make the job go so much easier.  We still have cucumbers that need to be made into pickles, but they will have to wait.  

Our beagle mix, Riley, at his usual post....not too far from wherever Lauren is.  Lauren really enjoyed helping to pick the peaches off of the trees.  I think that she liked being on the ladder as well.  :)  Our peaches weren't large.  They ranged from the size of apricots to somewhat smaller than a baseball.  They weren't pretty to look at either with black spots on them, but wow, were they ever sweet!  And no bugs or worms!  This was the first year that we have gotten peaches from these trees so we were thrilled.

Lauren with a look of determination.

I had to make sure that Bill got photo credit for all of his help also.  :)

Lauren got a big kick out of this twisted carrot.  We also had one that looked like a pair of pants with legs.  Overall, the carrots did very well.  I also harvested a few peppers, a crookneck squash, some nice slicing tomatoes, many cherry tomatoes, and some okra.  Not enough to put up but plenty to eat fresh.