Score! 104 jars from kijiji!

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Iggysbabysitter

Iggysbabysitter

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I'm working on a tight budget, and love to can, but HATE buying jars. Especially when so many people just toss them. So a quick ad on kijiji for free jars just netted me hundreds of rims, new seals, 18 quarts, and 84 jam/jelly jars of various sizes! And a really old preserve book thrown in! Woohoo! Before my ad, it was all headed to the recycle bin.
So, what do you like to can?
I normally make 12 different flavours for Christmas gifts, but with this many jars... wow, the possibilities!
crab apple jelly
crab apple (and a sweeter apple mixed in)applesauce
hot pepper jelly
banana date chutney
pineapple chutney
pickles (if my garden grows the way I need it to!)
pumpkin butter
 
I love to can too. I make bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, pickled beets, and pickled peppers. I also make strawberry jam, and plum jam. Oh and chilli sauce and canned tomatoes. I usually do up baskets at Christmas time with something I've canned and add crackers and hot chocolate and anything else I can think of to throw in there. Everyone seems to enjoy them, or at least thats what they tell me. :lol:
 
Wow, sammysue63, I've never done tomatoes and chili sauce, do you use a pressure canner for those?
I made some of my own baby food (applesauces and other fruit) 11 years ago, and that got me interested.
I started really getting into it when Gramma said she didn't want "dust collectors" for Christmas... so now I give her boxes of tiny jars of jam, jelly, beets that I make just for her... small enough that they're done in a couple of days.
I can't wait to get started! I have a few batches of rosehip jelly in the freezer that need to be cooked off and jarred.
 
Great score!

I make jam and chutney, sometimes chili sauce if we have lots of extra tomatoes, but I'm not into it in a big way. My specialty is Sussex Chutney... like Branston Pickle only better. :)
 
That's awesome. I actually got a free pressure cooker from the free cycle network and I've been meaning to start canning. I've never really done it before. I have a small garden that I've been working at the last couple years. This year I feel like I'm actually prepared so hopefully everything turns out and I will have some surplus produce to try canning with. I'll have beets, carrots, cucumbers, beans, and tomatoes. Enough to get my feet wet I think.
 
I don't use a pressure canner, only because I don't have one. :( I have been canning for almost 30 years now and so far I have been lucky. :) My Mother also canned tomatoes and chili sauce and she didn't have one either. It wasn't until last year when I was looking at a canning book that I found out I should be using one.
 
From what I understand there are some things that you don't really need to. Stuff with high acid content. But I wanted to try canning meat as well and that you need a pressure cooker for.
 
Yep, high acid foods like fruit and tomatoes and pickles are OK in a water bath canner, in fact sometimes a pressure cooker is a hassle and I don't haul it out if I want just a few pints of something.

I use a yummy recipe for zucchini pickles from the Joy of Cooking book. And pickled carrots are really tasty too. Too bad I am the only sweet pickle lover in my family, I only make those recipes every third year!

Anyone ever SUCCESSFULLY can corn? Mine is always AWFUL!! By the time the pressure canner recipe says it is done, it is carmelized--so I tried adding a little acid(vinegar) so that I could reduce the canning time and then you could TASTE it...one thing to leave to the professionals, I guess.

Congrats on the kijiji jar score!
 
Awesome i love canning.i make several kinds of jam.elderberry,raspberry,cherry,grape,peach raspberry.I get free jars because my daughter uses Classico spaghetti sauce the regular lids fit perfect and its just the right size for canning hot peppers.a pint and a half.
 
When I make soup, stew, beans or chili I always fill the crock pot to the top; then I get out the pressure canner and can the extra. It comes in real handy on days you don't feel like cooking. Just take off the lid and zap it in the microwave and supper's ready.
 
There is no reason at all to use a pressurized canner for tomatoes, catsup, tomato juice, pickles, jam, jelly, or applesauce. While water bath canning will kill most harmful bacteria, pressure canning is required to get the temperature high enough to kill Botulism spores. Botulism can not grow in a sugary or acid environment. The acidic nature of tomatoes or applesauce precludes any chance of effects. Botulism is not harmful by infecting people, its host is the vegetable or meat itself. It is the toxic waste of Clostridium botulinum, which is produced in the jar that is poisonous.

My mom always "cold-packed" green beans too.... I guess we were just lucky.
 
avdpas77":8oqxz75s said:
My mom always "cold-packed" green beans too.... I guess we were just lucky.
Click to expand...

Cold-packing means you put the food in the jar while it is fresh and "cold", and then you put it in the canner and then heat it up to cook and seal it. You can cold-pack food in a pressure canner...it is sometimes easier than hot-packing, prep-wise.
 
Iggysbabysitter that is amazing! I'm so jelous :lol: really I actually am...what does your ad look like/say? I may have to try this in my area!
 
The ad is simple and to the point:

I am looking for jars to use for a canning project, any size will do. I can pick up. Thanks for your help!

Mountainrabbits, place an ad on kijiji, craigslist or freecycle. You'd be asking for something most people just throw away. All the jars I have been offered were unwanted by the people giving them, and were going to be recycled. One woman said her mom would never throw anything away, and felt bad about tossing all those jars when it's time to move at the end of the month. Another said a buddy just "dropped off" 6 cases (read abandoned because he didn't know what to do with them), and he just wants them gone. For the people who answer your ad, you'd be doing them a favor, I think.

The people who've responded all ask what I plan to do with so many... I'll teach a couple young friends to can (so an assortment of sizes is key), a little of everything to get them started, and I'll learn pickling from my MIL in june-august (I've done 4 day sweet mix before, but I want a sweet mustard pickle). I also hope to get the foodsaver jar attachments and a brake bleeder (for a manual version of the food saver... no electricity needed!) to do some longterm storage of rice and beans and dehydrated goods.
I also give all the adults in my family an assortment of preserves at Christmas. Last year I gave away 4 cases of pints full of jelly, and 20 quarts of sweet pickled beets.
 
My final tally from 3 replies is 198 mason, ball, dominion and bernardin jars of various sizes! I love kijiji. And people who free-cycle.
 
I make jam and chutney, sometimes chili sauce if we have lots of extra tomatoes, but I'm not into it in a big way. My specialty is Sussex Chutney... like Branston Pickle only better
 

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