Doesn't anyone garden anymore? How about making and canning preserves?

@sharone74 (4837)
United States
March 21, 2010 6:03am CST
When I was young my mother and most of the women in her age group gardened. Everyone's grandmother gardened and put up fruit in those old fashioed ball mason canning jars. Women used to put away cans of every conceivable fruit, jelly, vegetable, and puree for use during the winter months. I used to have a garden, and I used to can my own tomato sauce and tomato paste. I grew other things as well but in my household tomato sauce was in constant need for cooking. I grew 4 different varieties of tomatoes so I made some virgin jars (with only one kind of tomato) and some mixtures of 2 or all 4 varieties that I grew. There is something wonderful about canning your own fruits and vegetables and knowing precisely what is in a jar of tomato sauce or what is in the jelly your kids put on their sandwiches. When you make and can it yourself there are no preservatives other than salt and spices, there is no added sugar but that which sun and God put into the mix, there is no pesticides (if you do organic vegetable gardening), there are no colorants, fillers, or anything that you cannot pronounce. In fact there is nothing in there that you didn't put in it and see with your own eyes. That is a good feeling to coax wholesome nutritious foods from the soil and bring it into your home for yourself and your family to eat. It seems that gardening and preserving fruits and veggies, and knowing for certain what goes into what goes into you are a dying activity. Gardening is an art form, it is also something that your children and grandchildren will remember and associate with you all of their lives. Growing vegetables these days is fairly easy and I can tell you from experience that the mass produced flash frozen or canned veggies that you buy in the store taste nothing like those which you can at home.
1 response
@marguicha (230351)
• Chile
21 Mar 10
I dont can fruits or veggies but I freeze my own. I also freeze some sauces I love for the whole year, like pesto. I have a herb garden and started a veggie garden last season after many years. I live alone now so I did not think it was worth it, but it is. I used to get enough veggies in the season for my family of 5 but this year I had a lot of troubles and it didn“t go too well. But I hope next year it will be better. I did freeze enough apricots of my apricot tree to make apricot cakes during the Winter. I live on the Southern Hemisphere so we are beginning Autumn. Take care!