kathy003

Are any of you seeing a shortage of canning supplies this year? DH wanted wide mouth canning jars last week at Walmart, while he shopped I went to grab him a case. I was surprised to see the shelves empty. I had thought by this time, the shelves would be well stocked. Luckily, Dollar General had a good supply of canning jars for this year.

Hi Jeepers, I'm afraid I would be disappointed also. I couldn't find anyone in my circle who had done it, so I thought I would ask here. They pretty much said the same thing. I don't mind freezing them, it would be a lot less work, but using foods that I can seem so much easier when I am ready to use them. Thank you for the reply

I have done genealogy for many years, I started on my husband's side. Lately I have been trying to track down an Aunt of mine who left the family years ago. It's actually been a twenty year search, this time, I discovered her granddaughter, so I have a long lost cousin I am now in contact with! The surprises never end when doing Genealogy!

Hi Momo, How are you doing? My husband passed away in 2014, so I know, as well as many others on here, what a journey losing a husband is. I hope your doing ok.

This year I want preserve strawberries. I have tried to freeze them, but I never take them out in time to thaw. So I thought I would can them. My canning book says that during the canning process they can lose a bit of flavor. For those of you who have canned strawberries, how much flavor did they lose? Was it worth it?

Online prices are highway robbery! My husband scoured the internet for lids the other day and could not believe the prices he saw. Any other year I have hundreds of lids on hand,, but not this year

I just started using old lids this year with the shortage going on. I was prepared for it to not work, so I was very pleasantly surprised that each one sealed!

Go fish, how are you doing?

Little sister, I believe you are right. Not only were the things you listed hard to find, so were gardening supplies and most seeds. Thankfully, we had a stockpile of seeds on hand. Tomato plants and seeds seemed especially hard to find. We stopped at a nursery and found tomato plants on clearance for $1, so we bought about 30 of them.

That is good advice, thank you!

Well, my husband found this company out of Reed City, Mi. He ordered me a few dozen to try out, they are tops you can reuse. It will take two weeks to get my order, but if they work, i'm ordering more. I'm linking their facebook page in case anyone else wanted to order some. Has anyone tried these? https://business.facebook.com/reusablecanninglids/

I don't think that is the proper way to hot pack meat. Everything I have read, and done, hot packing is putting the meat into the jars while everything is still hot.

Hi all, Has anyone had a hard time finding canning flats? I was well stocked at the beginning of the season and now I am running low (I have eight left), my husband and I went to five stores yesterday and no one had canning flats. We went to the big box stores Walmart, Meijer, etc. Those stores should have had them, but they didn't even have jars, much less flats. This morning I called our local grocery store, which always has a well stocked canning department this time of year. The gentleman I spoke with said no one can get canning supplies. Is anyone else finding this to be true in your area? So, if you have found flats online ( we found them online but they are super expensive), for a decent price, could you point me in the right direction? I would really appreciate it.

I worked in the garden today. My husband was at work so decided to weed my garden. This year he put the sprinkler on a timer so I didn't have to worry about watering the garden. I forgot, and was standing right by the sprinkler when it started! Once I got over my shock, I thought it was pretty funny. I also put up my tomato cages, I'm so glad that is done.

Welcome back! I remember you I believe Arby changed her screen name, although, I can't remember it for the life of me! I believe Mt. Rider is still around. I haven't seen anything from Cat, but I may have just missed her posts. When I first joined this message board I lived in the city, I didn't have a garden either, so I canned with food from the local fruit markets.