My garden, this year, has been a sad little shadow of my past gardens. The combination of a late, cold, wet spring and me being great with child for the first half of the summer, and nursing a hungry little monkey for the second half has made for a very late, very neglected, very low producing garden.
One item that has done very well, which it should since it is pretty much a no-brainer in gardening circles, are my green beans. I planted a lot this year hoping that I would have enough to can, which I did. And, as luck would have it, the all decided to ripen just as Baby Girl was born and when we came home there were pounds of beans that needed picking. And as luck would have it, I have a whole bunch of little fingers that are really good at picking beans, and snapping them.
The great thing about canning beans, is that they need little preparation, they aren’t like jellies and jams, they aren’t like tomatoes that need peeling either. The only thing that needs to be done to the beans to get them ready for canning is a good washing, and snapping them to the size desired. I then raw packed them in pint sized jars, added a half teaspoon sea salt, and hot water. I then processed them for 20 minutes at 12 pounds pressure (the pounds of pressure needed is determined by altitude). Simple and easy.
I was able to can 24 pints, and the bean bushing are still producing like crazy, there will be many jars of beans on the shelves at our house to feed us all winter long!
