It's that time of year again

Before canning

It's September, and once again I've been busily channeling my pioneer ancestors. The days get shorter, migratory birds start flocking up to prepare for the trek south, and I feel the urge to get out the canning kettle. Twenty-two pints of pressure-canned purple-hull beans that turned green when cooked, several batches of cucumber pickles, pickled cauliflower, Frog Balls (pickled brussels sprouts),  a batch of hot pepper slices, plum jam, 12 quarts of peaches, and I'm feeling compelled to can more.

After canning. Maybe next year I'll invest in a Frencher.

My You Can Can book has multiple recipes I'd like to try. Tomatillo salsa -- the tomatillo plant in the garden is loaded with fruit; there must be enough to make 6 or 7 pints of salsa verde. I've never canned salsa. Homemade fruit cocktail -- that's something that it never occurred to me to try making myself. Watermelon relish. Yellow squash pickles.

But even without the cookbook, I can think of things to make this fall. Awesome Relish -- a person can never have too much Awesome Relish on hand. Apple juice -- granted, there aren't very many apples in the orchard this year, but there are some feral trees near by that are loaded. Apple pie filling -- some of those feral trees must have good pie apples. Last year I put up about a dozen jars of apple pie filling -- they all got used. Ditto apple sauce. Green tomato pickles -- the tomato plants in the garden are loaded with tomatoes, and there's no way they're going to ripen before we have a hard frost. I'd rather turn some into pickles than deal with having multiple boxes of green tomatoes slowly ripening in the house. At this point, the big question is which I'm going to run out of first: ideas or jars. And once the jars run out, I can always buy more.