Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Monday, September 22, 2014

The Shattered Remains of My Green Bean Dreams

A broken jar is the worst thing about canning. All that work gone to waste.

This is the shattered remains of my green bean dreams. See the bottom of the jar?

The broken jar.

Why do jars break in the canner? Lots of reasons.

A while ago there was a terrific link on the SB Canning site about this very thing. I think  I was the culprit in this case. Previously I had used a regular knife to get all the air bubbles out of the jar....and this could have caused some hairline fractures that caused the bottom to break out of my jar. This time I was sure to use a plastic spatula but apparently the damage was already done.

Knowing the "why" didn't soothe my disappointment. I hate wasting food. I hate broken jars. I hate shattered green bean dreams.

So what could I do? Nothing. Or be mad. But that didn't do any good so I just shook it off.  I would not try and rescue or reuse any food that was part of a broken jar incident. So it all went in the trash.

We were glad tho that we got our second bushel of beans processed. We ended up with 13 quarts canned, plus about one quart that were blanched than frozen....and one terrific ham, bean, and potato supper in the crock pot.

I don't think we'll be able to get anymore green beans this week... but today will be all about peppers. And maybe potatoes.

We've had a tremendous cool down and this week should be cool, clear, and comfortable.  I'm going to try and get a lot of the heavy lifting done outside...right after I get these peppers into the freezer.

Happy Monday everyone? Are you mad about broken jars?


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Bummer. I always use a bamboo skewer of air bubbles. Sad...

Vera said...

No broekn jars so far, but just had two jars from a five jar batch of courgette and aubergine veg mix not seal. Know how you feel about the waste of food. Felt the same when I tested the seals after cooling down and found those two not done. Don't feel like putting them through the canner again, so to the dogs they will go. Vx

Fiona from Arbordale Farm said...

Bugger. I guess at least it was only 1 jar.

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