Friday, May 08, 2009

Pantry Count and Clean Up



I finally conquered the cleaning of our laundry room/pantry area. It was a job that came complete with me threatening to throw excess shoes belonging to the children into the neighbor's donkey field. Apparently they all believed me because amazingly everyone took their shoes and put them away in a safe location. With the cleaning of the laundry room came me counting and organizing my mason jars. Remember that last year I had EVERY jar we owned filled with something yummy to eat. We have eaten our way through lots of the canned goods, but we still have lots left so I am pleased.

After counting the remaining jars, I know I will not have to can cinnamon applesauce, jalapenos, green tomato relish, red tomato relish, dill pickles, or lime pickles for this upcoming season. We still have plenty to last us another complete year. This will save me a lot of time this year, and of course I am thrilled about that. I encourage you to take count of your remaining items in the pantry. I was blindly assuming that I would have to can both kinds of pickles this year so I was planning on planting an entire bed of cucumbers. Now that I realize my pickle supply is good, I will only plant a half bed of cucumbers for eating and sharing.

The thing I hate about organizing is that I spent the entire morning working and the laundry room is the only thing that looks nice. The rest of the house looks like a bomb went off during the day! My day today will be cleaning the rest of the house and making a nice dinner. By the way, we are having our first meal with garden broccoli for this season. I am looking forward to that!!!!

grace and peace,

julie

8 comments:

Unknown said...

i've been eating our garden brocolli for a while, so yummy and different than store bought. we are on the downside now but pot are on the menu, yum yum

Bluehenchick said...

Julie -- I am gearing up to can a lot from my garden this summer -- how many canning jars do you usually have on hand to can with?
Diane

Boysaplenty!! said...

Hi Julie! Your blog always inspires me with my gardening! This will be a first for me to actually can something from my garden this year. My cukes are in, we had some for lunch yesterday-mmm mmm good! So, I will start off with pickling them. I have A LOT of tomato plants and I am looking forward to having my own canned tomatoes! I hope you have another great summer of garden success and fill all those jars again!! Thanks for sharing.

Trixi said...

Wow, I love all of that shelving for your canned items. I so need that. We have 31 tomatoes planted now and need to put in atleast 10 more.

MHf said...

Lookin' good! You seem to have a pretty good system going there. We will have a large garden this year - way too much for the two of us. Hopefully friends and family appreciate the excess!
Paula

Andrea Cherie said...

WOW! You have a lot of jars! I'm envious of your shelves to store them all on! We've been making our way through the apple juice we froze last August. As every jar is emptied and washed I have NO where to put them! There are 13 jars waiting to go somewhere on my kitchen table right now...probably to Jason's warehouse. I'm sure he will be thrilled to store them for me. In fact I know he will since he drinks most of the apple juice :)

TX Doodler said...

Your pantry is beautiful. What an organized/planned farm chick you are! Way to go! Your relishes sound yummy. If I ever canned pickles-my oldest son would find them & have them emptied out in 1 week. Lol! He loves his pickles.

How's the freezer storage? Curious if you guys went thru the truck load of corn yet. Will you do that again this year or did you plant your own?

TnFullQuiver said...

Kay,
That is one of the fun parts about gardening...just as one thing is finishing up something new and tasty is getting ready to take its place! How are your flowers that you replanted doing?

Diane,
I went and did a estimated count of my jars. I think we have around 400 jars in all. I have been collecting canning jars for over 8 years. I didn't realize we had so many. Also remember that I am canning for a family of 7.

Pam,
I am so glad you are going to start canning!!! It is a lot of work, but it comes with a lot of rewards in the end. ENJOY!!

Mrs. Trixie,
We have been planning on finishing our shelves for the last 4 years, but we haven't gotten around to it yet. When we moved in our home, there was a lot of space, but no shelves. My husband quickly threw together the shelves to handle all of our storage needs. Now, it is time to paint them!!!

Paula,
Have you settled in your new home? Do you love it? You must be settled pretty well or you wouldn't be having a large garden yet! Have fun!!!

Andrea Cherie,
The storing of empty canning jars is probably one of my greatest frustrations as an organizer. It seems foolish to just line them up like I did on a shelf because it waste so much space. Ideally it would be great to keep the boxes and restore them in the boxes when they weren't being used. as you can see, I didn't think of that in time!!!!

TxDoodler,
Trust me...I am anything but organized. My husband gives me tips and pointers and I just carry out his suggestions! Our freezers are coming down to the end. It will be time to defrost them soon. Which is great because we have 5 lambs and 1 cow to put in there soon. We have about a quarter of our corn left. I have enough to get me through July. That was my plan...I wanted enough corn to last the year. So we will get another truck load this year. We may grow enough corn to eat a little, but we just aren't set up to grow the amount we need to last the entire year.

grace and peace,
julie