Award Winning Canning ~ Who Knew?!

As you may have read I had my first solo effort at canning this year. There were some ups and downs, and I came out with some respectable canned items.

Where we live there are little towns around, and each and everyone has to have their own fair. This week it’s the South Haven fair. My mom happens to live in South Haven so she’s pretty gung ho about this little fair.  One of the highlights of this little fair is the judging of different things, flowers, flower arrangements, photographs, and of course canning. My mom had been harassing encouraging me to enter some of my canning in the fair ~ but I’m not all that gung ho and I didn’t really think I would.

Well, Hanna and my mom did some flower arrangements for her to enter and so I had to be there anyway so I grabbed a jar of hamburger dills and a jar of the zucchini relish. I entered them, not really expecting much. It’s my first attempt at canning and most of the entrants are let’s say “older” more experienced ladies.

Well, knock me over with a feather.

Now I’m pretty sure the zucchini relish was in a class all by itself, but there were a LOT of other hamburger dills there. That’s pretty exciting and feels pretty good.

Hanna did quite well with her arrangements also ~ she was pretty close to getting Grand Champion for her arrangement of Sunflowers ~ but got edged out by another little person who added thistle (which is technically illegal because it’s a law you have to burn Thistle if you find it in Kansas lol). She did win 2 or 3 Blue ribbons, a red and a white. Good job.

Well my garden did not product nearly the amount I thought it would, which is disappointing, but also gives me some ideas of what I need to do differently next year to get the amount I need to do more canning. My goal was to can enough tomatoes and veggies to last us through the winter ~ but I probably got enough to last us through a week or two. My beans got burnt and didn’t do anything at all.

Don’t worry, I’m not discouraged. I’m going to stock up on canning jars now while they’re on sale, and plan a bigger garden for next year. I think I’ll choose some different tomatoes (and more) as well as a different way to grow my beans. I may do a little more checking into the type of beans I grow. Maybe something else will do better out here in the crazy Kansas weather. We’ll see.

So what about you? How did your garden do? Will you be stocking up on canning jars to prepare for next year?