This time of year is exhausting

[MTmomma]

It's 1:30 am, and I'm waiting on my last batch of dilly beans to be done processing. I am tired, but it really does have to be done. I have 60 pounds of peaches, 40 pounds of pears, and 25 pounds of nectarines sitting on the floor of my kitchen while waiting to be processed next, not to mention the giant sack of cucumbers that are in the fridge that will soon become chunk pickles. And of course, the tomatoes are just starting to ripen, so I'll be working on tomatoey stuff before I know it. Then it will be apples.....Oh, and all of the veggies that I'll be freezing.

I'm utterly pooped thinking about it, but it is SO worth it to have all of this home grown and nutritious food available in my pantry. What are you all working on? Or has big time canning season already past in more southern regions of the country?

[Firebird Rising]

I m really jealous. I want to do that someday. My mom and I did apricots, jams and applesauce but not in nearly as much quantities as that! How cool!

[swimming with sharks]

I did 10 qts of tomatoes last week and was impressed with myself :bag ...can't imagine doing all yours with littles running around. :no

[shaslove]

I did 6 pints of tomato sauce this week. I'm frustrated my green beans did not turn out. I want to do pickles.

[MTmomma]

I did 10 qts of tomatoes last week and was impressed with myself :bag ...can't imagine doing all yours with littles running around. :no

I don't know how I did it 2 years ago when the kiddos were 4, 2, and 4 months old! :hunh

[abh5e8]

wow...can you share what dilly beans are? and how you make them.

also...how do you make chunk pickles?

so far i've done 12 courts of tomato sauce and 14 quarts apple sauce.

[Blue-EyedLady]

So far, all I've canned is lots of grape jelly. I've frozen some diced tomatoes, broccoli, green beans, and peaches. Oh, I've made a little fruit leather, too. I picked 60# of apples today and have to deal with them next. My kitchen is thick with fruit flies from all the fruit. :(

Oh, and I'm exhausted, too. The only time I can really work on stuff is after the kids go to bed. And since baby still wakes 4 or 5 times in the night to nurse, I'm not really getting much sleep at all. :yawn

[Macky]

I've done a few types of cucumber pickles, relish and some jams so far and dehydrated the celery. Next is the green tomato relish. Our tomatoes aren't ripe yet, so that's a ways off. We don't grow any fruit. I wish we could do apples, but DD1 is allergic. I do pickled beets every second year and this is my year off. :) Oh, and I tried pickling green cherry tomatoes for the first time, too, but they haven't sat long enough to try yet. ETA: We have a frost warning for tonight, so we covered what we could (all the paste toms, one row of bush beans, some peppers and cherry toms) and brought in what we couldn't (rest of the peppers, cherry toms, cukes, pickling onions, dry beans, slicing toms and the pumpkins). The asparagus, broccoli, peas and green beans were prepped and frozen as they came in earlier in the season. We still have to dig our potatoes and carrots this week. E(again)TA: Oh, and we've done the corn already, too.