Mama tried to teach me!

Way back when I was fourteen or so and that was a way back then, my mama tried to teach me how to can. I'm a little leary now as I was then because all I could think about was the time she blew the pressure cooker up and beans were stuck to our kitchen ceiling. The imprint of those beans lasted for several years until Daddy painted the ceiling. I was having none of it...teach my sister instead, please!!! I wish I would have listened. I'm now teaching myself how to can without the benefit of my mama or my mamaw being around. They have both gone on to heaven. This all came about because I planted a very small garden this spring and I mean very small, hardly 8'x10'. But, I have tomatoes coming out my ears. So I bought myself a boiling water canner, a dozen pint jars and a Ball Blue Book, a must have when learning to can.







But first, back to the garden. I planted Rutger tomatoes, straight neck squash, jubilee watermelon, corn, okra, bell peppers and sunflowers. We had an abundance of squash until the bugs finally ate the plants up. I'm overrun with okra. I love fried okra but you couldn't pay me to eat stewed okra. My mamaw loved it and fixed it every chance she got. There wasn't much my mamaw fixed that I wouldn't eat, but I drew the line at stewed okra. Anyway, I have a lot of it and can't eat it fast enough. This was the "take" this morning....more tomatoes, okra and the first of the corn.












I do not use a pressure cooker....yet. I'm working my way up from the boiling water canner (can't blow that up) to the pressure cooker. These are my lovely tomatoes from this morning and a few from a couple of days ago and how they looked as they were being processed.
















The aftermath!!!














All that for three pint jars!!!!