May Gardner

I was all excited about preserving my excess garden produce to store in a shelf-stable way, and had this idea that I'd be able to can things I grow in a basic and healthy way, but I keep running into roadblocks. The more I look into it, the less I think canning will work for me. I really want it to work, but it seems like it won't unless I change what I grow so that I grow things specifically for canning, and change the types of foods I'm willing to eat. I already was going to change the foods I would eat some for this, but now it's seeming like I'd need to change it too much. I'm hoping someone(s) will have solutions. Here are the issues:

First: I'm limited to water bath canning, canning-wise, since my stove is not suited for pressure canning, which I can deal with as I was thinking I could still water bath can (and dehydrate, freeze).

Second: I know it's recommended to use only lab tested recipes in order to be food safe. I know I can do something like refrigerator pickles without the recipes, but those aren't shelf-stable and the point for me is to have it last months beyond the season, not just weeks. The thing is, this severely limits what I can use in terms of the ingredients as well as the size of the pieces of ingredients... and I'm having trouble finding much if anything I actually want to eat or think is healthy (I guess it's a relative and subjective term).  More on that ahead.

Third: Is related to the previous one in that I don't like sweet pickles or relish, and don't want to have added sugar (or added sweeteners) in my jams, jellies, preserves, etc. or any food actually. It's partially because I don't think it's healthy, and mostly simply because I don't have that much of a sweet tooth and I get headaches from sweeteners, just don't like the taste (especially in pickles), and prefer to taste whatever sweetness (if any) of the foods without that. When it comes to pickles I'm all about the savory and sour, and ick to any sweet with that. When it comes to fruit things, I like the fruit itself without the added sweeteners.

Why is sugar in practically all of the water bath canning recipes, even pickling? I've seen in some places that you can skip the sugar as it's just a flavor thing with pickling, but in other places it says it's needed and none of the recipes have it as an optional thing. Even the recipes for special diets that can't have sugar still have a sweetener. Really? Can't we just have plain dill pickles without sugar or garlic? Which brings me to...

Fourth: I'm allergic to garlic, and somewhat sensitive to onions. I love dill and it's fine in foods... used to be allergic to dill pollen, but that seems to have resolved.

Fifth: There are way more limitations on ingredients for canning than I thought there would be, so like most recipes, I don't necessarily have the exact same ingredients ready to use at the same time and/or at all as the canning recipes. I'm fine with having to get specific canning salt, and get distilled vinegar, but when it gets into the realm of needing to buy produce that I'm not growing just to be able to preserve what I am growing, it stops working for me so much.

Take cucumber pickles for instance, the size of the cucumbers is an important food-safe part of the recipe as is whether you slice it and how. I usually don't grow pickling cucumbers specifically, and I was hoping to be able to pickle the cucumbers I grow when they are a bit younger than I usually eat them. The thing is I grow a lot of snake and Armenian types of cucumbers (which are actually a melon), little cucamelons (which isn't really a cucumber either), and various kinds of cucumbers that are meant to be eaten at a larger size (like slicers), none of which seem to be allowed except possibly the slicers in relish (which has sugar, garlic, onions, or all of those... and red bell pepper which I'm not growing).

I had thought I'd be able to grow things I like (and I do grow lots of varieties), and preserve what I wouldn't be eating fresh so that I could have it during the rest of the year too. I wasn't going to be depending entirely on canning, but I don't have unlimited freezer space, and freezers need electricity, so I was hoping the canning could take care of that. I can dehydrate things, and have been, but my dehydrator only has 5 trays and uses electricity, is not quiet, and it gets depressing having it on all the time in my living space. I'm getting the plans for the solar dehydrators here and we plan to build it, but it might not get done for this season, so I was thinking canning could make up for that. I was hoping to have canning as part of how I can eat food I've grown all year round on a regular basis, even after we have the solar dehydrator.

Does anyone have solutions for this, or should I just give up on water bath canning (at least until/if I adjust what I grow)?

Yay!! Thank you SO much! I'm so excited! I'll be sure to leave reviews too.

Sounds good, Thekla. Let us know how the experiment turns out, please. You also might want to sew the seeds in the areas around the loose soil too, to serve as a control. Good idea about the subsoil.

I agree with starting with the risers, that's my plan. Those would not be hooked up to driplines or garden hoses, so don't need the hose barb. They would be used kinda' like a 12-18" tall sprinkler that doesn't spray, only dribbles, so like drip in itself. They run for about 10 minutes every other day or daily when it's getting over 120. One per bed supports many plants. I'm attaching some photos of some of the beds with trellis to illustrate. I figure the weather extremes can make the PVC degrade more when they are above ground, so the risers are the most important part.

Are you saying your animals were able to destroy your stainless risers?

Thanks for letting me know about Ferguson acquiring someone who has the stainless stuff. We have used them a lot in the past, and they didn't have anything last I checked with them--before today. Lo' and behold! They have some things that could work for risers now. Quite pricey though. Less so if I were able to skip the threading, or create it myself... I'm not ready to get a ton of piping right now. I may have to ration the risers too.

You know I've thought of that too--for gophers instead, as we have many. I don't know how it is with mole diggings, but I've noticed that nothing grows very well where the gophers have dug for quite some time. It's odd as you'd think things would grow better, and that it'd stir up at least weed seeds, like when you disturb the soil by digging it with a fork or shovel, but no. Things just don't grow in there for at least a season.

Christobal: where are you getting your 316 stainless steel plumbing pipes? What kind of fittings do they have - are they standard plumbing fittings?

I have been trying off and on to find a way to replace plastic in the irrigation systems we have (am in flat arid place with very little rainfall and very low humidity, so irrigation of some sort is needed to grow enough food). I've managed to minimize the use of the PVC above ground to just a riser and adjustable bubbler here and there, using mini swales, etc to direct the flow like flood irrigation, but have been having trouble finding anything that would work to replace that. I looked into getting stainless steel pipes as they seemed more likely to last here (gets down to single digits (F) overnight in Winter and up to 120's in Summer during the day - with 50-60 degree temp shifts each day year round).

That could help with the riser, which would be at least some of it. Oddly, I've been having trouble finding non-plastic bubblers or sprinkler heads. I remember there being metal ones back at least as recently as the 90's... but can find no trace of them now. I figured if I got the stainless pipe, I could figure out a way to do the bubbler replacement. It could just be an adjustable valve actually, since we set the bubblers to just dribble down the riser anyway.

Love this thread BTW. The brainstorming is interesting and fun, as are the jokes within it, but there's actually things that can be done practically here and there too.

I haven't heard of Italian island style, but I have heard of Italian style. What Americans call 'French Bread' and 'Italian Bread' is quite similar, but slightly different. We used to have both when I was growing up. I haven't had the 'Italian Bread' since though, so couldn't really tell you what the difference is well enough. Best I can say is that Italian bread was a bit more chewy and dense with softer outside than French bread. French bread was more airy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Not sure how the starter would factor in though... but perhaps different strains?

Hmm, that's odd, looks like it's available to me, and it's on sale it seems.

The model is called a 'Kit', because you sort of assemble it from the tube, ends, and reflectors. (Simple to do). It's their most inexpensive one, and the same sized tube and tray as the 'Go'. The Go is more portable in some ways because it's got the reflectors built into a zipper case so it's quick to set up/take down an throw it in a bag, but the reflectors are smaller so I chose the Kit and am glad I did. I don't throw it in a bag, and figured if I wanted to travel with it I could make a zipper thing and use those larger reflectors. I also have their 'Fusion' which is much larger, so that'd be better if you want to have sliced sandwich bread. It would be round slices though, lol.

Regarding how I use the last dough with the next batch: I don't do anything scientific with it, I just don't use quite all the dough from the last batch and then plop it in with the new batch when it's mixed before mixing them together. I also don't wash out the container I kept the last batch in before adding the new for the fridge. This is only when I want it to be sourdough, of course.

Sometimes I've kept a sourdough batch and a non-sourdough batch so I can use either according to my mood for the day I use it. Generally though, I don't have it every day, and fridge space is limited, so I like to just start anew each time and let it gradually get sour as I use it. That way it changes and I've had both kinds over the course of it. For your purposes, since you want to go sour all the way, you'd want to skip starting anew after the first time. I'd monitor how it's going after several batches though, as I haven't gone more than about 4 or 5 times without starting anew, so don't know how it'd be after that.

Excellent! On both counts.  Sounds delicious (and I'm sure it is)! Thanks!