Canning Photos and Thoughts on Peppers

We take a ton of photos and I am finally just starting to have the time to post them since school is slowing down before winter break. We canned all summer long. It seemed like we were at it every other day. We canned a lot of food that we grew or picked ourselves, but we also bought a lot from our favorite farmer's at the Spokane Farmer's Market. 

Here is a good sample of the tomatoes we grew. A variety of color, sizes, and flavors. We used them in all of our summer cooking, but they worked especially well for canning. 

Pasilla Pepper. Extra hot! Good growth per pepper, quantity was lower than other peppers.

Mirasol Pepper. Great growth per pepper, good color change, and great quantity per plant. Hot, but not too hot.

Gypsy pepper. Prolific! Sweet! Changes color from light green to bright red/orange. Delicious at any stage. My new favorite sweet pepper. Definitely growing this one again. Fresh was great, but sautéed really well too!

Sweet pickle pepper. Not worth the time. Fun to look at, prolific with small peppers, and great growth all around. The peppers lacked in flavor. The flesh was thin and bitter. Not the best pepper I have ever had, in fact store bought peppers probably taste better.

Seeds of Change Cal Wonder Orange pepper! Oh yea! This one was great! Our biggest pepper grown, color turned reasonably fast, and the flavor was outstanding. Excellent sliced on a piece of bread with sprouts, cheese, and mustard. Cooks well too. Will definitely grow again. 

What do you do when you have so many tomatoes and peppers?

Make salsa!

This recipe was more than 75% grown here. We had to buy more hot peppers and a couple other ingredients. 

Beautiful Color! Bright.

The flavor is outstanding as well. Hot and complex, yet sweet at the end. We used multiple different spices, really takes the taste buds for a spin. Probably the best salsa yet.

We also did a boat load of pickles.

So fun fun to can!

The brightness of the green is really highlighted after the ice bath.

Packed in jars in halves and quarters.

Filled to the brim.

Extra hot spice mix. 1/2 of a Mirasol, 1 whole Jalapeño, red pepper flakes, and peppercorns. 

Another variation with a dried Pasilla instead of the half of a Mirasol.

Standard. 1 Jalapeño halved, garlic, peppercorn, and dill.

I now know from this year of canning that we need to plant double the tomato plants, as many cucumber plants as we can fit, triple the pepper plants, and we need to start an orchard in moveable containers. We aren't going to be at this house forever, someday we will move to our forever home. It would be really nice if we had 10 or so fruit trees already fruiting when we move (SPRING PROJECT!).

That's it! Thanks for reading!