We were busy canning green beans this weekend. I can't always can after picking and quite frankly, I'd rather do it for a long afternoon on the weekend instead of a couple of hours after work 2 or 3 times a week.

We're filling a 5 gallon bucket half full every 3 days or so. I'm putting them in a doubled paper grocery sack and storing them in the frig until the weekend. I never did this because I was worried about rust, but it's been working like a charm. Just thought I'd pass it along in case there was someone else who didn't know it would work.

That is a lot of beans!!!

We'll can 50-60 quarts of green beans every summer in addition to eating them fresh. A full 5 gallon bucket will give us 11 quarts. There's nothing like green beans from the garden in the winter.

We'll can about that many quarts of tomatoes/juice and freeze corn too. Pull a roast and some corn out of the freezer, then crack a can of beans and some tomato juice for soup. Nothing tastes as good as that on a cold winter day.

A bunch of my co-workers think I'm nuts for doing that much work instead of buying it all at the store, but that's their problem. LOL

I am jealous! I should learn how to can; on my list, but I never seem to get around to it.

I learned as a kid through helping my grandparents and parents, but got away from it after I left home 30 years ago. In the last 10 years, I decided to pick it back up so my kids could learn and maybe pass it on to their kids.

It's really easy, but it's time consuming for a few weeks in the summer.

I have the Ball Blue Book of Canning, but it's also available online HERE

Various university and county extension websites are good sources too. It's important to only use trusted sources for the recipes.

Tomato based recipes are the easiest/safest. You don't need a pressure canner.