Summer Goodness

With yummy summer goodness packed into little packages like this...

and this...

I spent a lot of time doing this.

And the end result are cupboards full of beautiful jars like these.

It feels good to store away some of the summer harvest for a rainy day. There is something very satisfying about seeing all the pretty jars lined up in the cupboard and it's comforting to know that I'm doing something productive and trying to be self-sufficient.

I was able to can a little bit this summer. I'd like to can more but with the kids home, it is a little crazy and once Fall starts, soccer and football monopolize most of my time. But I was able to can some applesauce, pears, plum jelly, peach-orange smoothies, freeze quite a few bell peppers, roast some chili's and freeze them, make raspberry jam, and can a lot of tomatoes. I probably could have doubled the amount of tomatoes I did except for that we got a late start putting our garden in (remember we had a freak snow storm in May) and the early snow storm we had a few days ago ruined what green tomatoes I had left. Today I finished up what I rescued from the snow. Wish I could have done more but it will have to do.

Thanks to Pene for the pretty pictures of the fruit.