After starting our vegetable plants from seed in the greenhouse and tending them in their raised beds, it’s always nice to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  Although I do freeze some of our vegetables using my Foodsaver vacuum sealer, it’s a great feeling to open the pantry and see those jars of luscious vegetables we can eat all winter long. And, with concerns of continued drought conditions across the U.S., it only makes sense to have extra provisions.

Canning is somewhat of a nostalgic activity for me. I remember when I was growing up, our family always had a large garden. When I was very young, my mother canned much of the harvest we didn’t consume during the summer. We had an old Glenwood stove in the basement she would use, so her canning activities wouldn’t heat up the house in the summer. Sometimes she had a friend come over to help her, and she would bake something delicious to enjoy with coffee while they were working. Although I must admit the freshly-baked confection was the initial draw for me, watching the canning process was a good learning experience.

When my husband and I bought our first home, it sat on a large lot. At my dad’s prompting, my husband created a large, fenced-in garden area in the yard. During that time, my mother gave me her water bath canner and accessories, along with a book of canning recipes. We had a great harvest that year, and I remember how accomplished I felt having a pantry full of canned food for the winter. I still use her water bath canner to this day.

Preserving healthy, organic food from the garden really isn’t all that difficult. However, with fast food and meal delivery options, canning seems to have become something of a lost art. When we moved to the rural area where we now live several years ago, I was pleased to learn that one of my older neighbors still preserves her garden bounty by canning.

If you have a vegetable garden and would like to give home canning a try, you can find many good instructional videos online. Here is a list of some basic equipment you will need:

1. Water-Bath Canner

A water-bath canner is just a large, deep pot equipped with a lid and a rack. Cooking equipment stores and online merchants stock water-bath canner kits; however, a large, covered stock pot will do.

You will also need a canning jar rack.  The rack helps to lift the jars off the bottom of the pot, which keeps them away from direct heat and allows the boiling water to heat the entire jar. Racks designed specifically for water-bath canners have handles that allow the rack to be elevated and hooked to the rim of the pot.

If you’re new to canning, a water bath canner kit with the rack and accessories would be a good investment.

2 Pressure Canner

To heat-process non-acidified vegetables, or anything containing meat, poultry, or fish, you’ll need a a pressure canner. Pressure canners are available online or in cooking supply stores. They are tall, heavy, pots that have a lid that can be locked in place and include a pressure-regulating device.

3. Canning Jar Lids With Screw Bands

Two-piece metal home-canning closures include a screw band and a flat metal lid with a channel filled with sealing compound. Flat lids are constructed of tin-plated steel that has been protected with food-safe coatings. The underside of the lid has a channel coated with a unique food-safe sealing compound specifically formulated for preserving food at home. The threaded metal screw band fits over the threaded neck of the jar and holds the lid in place during heat processing. Holding the lid securely in place during heat processing is the sole purpose of a screw band.

4. Canning Utensils

While they are not essential, there are a number of specialty kitchen tools that make canning easier and safer. These include jar lifters, canning funnels, and magnetic lid wands. If your budget is tight, I highly recommend just purchasing a jar lifter, which makes it easier to add or remove jars from the canner without getting burned.

5. Home Preserving Book

I also recommend buying a good canning book, such as Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving, which you can find at most onine book retailers. It contains many good recipes, with precise canning instructions for each recipe.

6. Canning Labels

Canning labels are also a good idea. I like to use the round canning labels you can write on because they can be applied on the jar lids after processing. As jars can be reused but lids and rings should be replaced each time they are used for canning, it makes sense to put the label on the lid. In addition to listing the food item in the jar, I always include the date it was canned.

In conclusion, given the high price of organic produce and the news reports of possible food insecurity on the horizon, canning just makes sense. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to give it a try.