Yes, life IS a learning experience, isn't it? Just this year I learned:

Don't freeze apricots before making jam unless you want to make apricot butter instead, they really break down and get mushy and leave no definable pieces of fruit.

Don't pick fruit at the local orchard until you inventory your freezer and see what you have left from last year or you'll end up with about 40 pounds of blueberries taking up freezer space.

Just a couple of hills of pumpkins will provide all the jack o lanterns you need for every niece, nephew and grandchild in the family. However, if you plant the smaller "pie" pumpkins you can eat those AND let the kids carve jack o lanterns.

Don't stack round bales of hay right next to the barnyard fence. No matter how full the hay feeders are, at least one cow is going to lean on the fence to eat the stored bales and that fence will require daily repair until the bales are moved.

Annie

Don't ask your husband to bring home 25 lbs. of apples when you have already canned applesauce, etc. I have no ide what I am going to do with these. They were free, so I said, Ok, bring me about 20 lb. ! What was I thinking ??
Maybe I will be a good Grammie and make cinnamon apples and brown sugar spiced applesauce.
I may start peeling them and see if they are good for drying. We can use more dried apples. I have no freeze space.

Laughing at all of these!

My lessons (AGAIN! In some cases!):

Do NOT accept 40 lbs. of "free" concord grapes when:

1. I don't really like grape jelly.
2. Not real big on grape juice
But....I can't waste them!! They were FREE (well, in trade for a couple of hours work)!
Good thing we like wine! A year from now or more....

There's a limit to what you can/should do with green tomatoes. Pie is beyond that limit at my house.

There's STILL no need to make more jam/jelly when I have enough for the next 5 years...even if that new recipe sounds fantastic!

Grow more of the things we like/eat and less "experiments".

Never stop learning!

Deanna

I too am laughing !

Ditto: How much does one need of one thing.

Wear gloves when handling:
 Chilies
 Olives
 Raspberries
 Anything else that can stain your fingers, nails and cuticles for 6 weeks.

Don't leave the kitchen when preparing apple butter or the walls, counters, cabinets, stove, ceiling, floor, towels, and cat will be covered in apple plops from the volcano on the stove.

Nancy

Do a better job of marking brine (for making corned beef and pickles) and syrup for canning apples, pears and peaches, when these are stored in the fridge for later use. Because apples cooked in brine have a MUCH different flavor than when cooked in syrup.

At least, when I finally got around to tasting before putting the apples in the jars - I noted quite a bit of "saltiness" - which was first attributed to lime juice.

But "no" found the wayward syrup way back in the fridge, and hastily microwaved it to hot, adding it to the apples, after straining out the brine.

Actually, they turned out quite well - a little salty, sweet, acidy - apples. Might go good with meat - or something.

Bejay

lol!!

Nancedar, I'd love to see your cat. (If it wasn't a tortoisehell before, I suppose it was after the apple butter....)

Bejay, I am making pork chops with apples & onions RIGHT NOW while I was reading your post. Some of those briny apple slices would've been just the thing!

I'm no better --- I was gazing at two jars of lovely golden liquid in the pantry the other day; I had a very clear memory of having liquid left at the end of a canning adventure and deciding to put it up rather than let it go to waste. But I did NOT remember WHAT it was leftover from --- it might be fruity sugar syrup, or it might be spiced WINE in which fruit had been poached. Either would be lovely, but which one rather determines when the appropriate moment for opening and serving....

Z, who ran out of the canning labels she has become attached to --- brown Kraft ones from labelsbytheheet --- and has been waiting till she gets more rather than use the Bernardin ones she has, because, embarrassingly, she is so tickled by how the pantry shelves look when all the labels match.....

OK, Zabby, I figured it out and went to the website. Would you share with us (me) which ones you particularly like best?

And ... like those of us who collect old canning jars ... I think there are a number of us who like "everything to match". Certainly I do, and I think you're perfectly normal! ha ha

Thanks,
Kathy

And while it's not Harvest Forum related, really, I HAVE LEARNED to mark items that I've put away 'til later. I used to make a concoction of lots of water and a couple of beaten eggs and sprayed it onto our plants to keep the deer away. This would sit in the refrigerator in a Tupperware juice container until I used it again. One day our adult daughter, who was visiting, poured herself a glass of "lemonade" and gagged! She yelled at me to take better care of throwing out "old food" so she wouldn't get sick. Serves her right for not asking permission!

Here is a link that might be useful: Labels by the Sheet

Or my ex-husband, who was being particularly foul one day, came home, opened the fridge and grabbed a bowl of beef stew. Only it wasn't .......uhm......regular beef stew. It was some new menu of dog food, with meatballs or something in it I had a coupon for and didn't want to give the whole can to the dog until I saw how his digestive tract handled it.

I enjoyed that entirely too much. LOL.

LOL, Calliope, my daughter once ate a bowl full of homemade dog food and thought it was "not bad". (grin) I used to make dog food with the scrap beef and parts like tongue and heart when we slaughtered cattle and The WeinerDog loved it.

Even Ashley thought it wasn't too bad, it was beef and brown rice and some vegetables, mixed with beef broth and all "chopped" up, so I knew it wouldn't hurt her but I couldn't resist reminding her in front of her friends that she ate the dog food....

Annie

You folks are too funny. I have learned it is best to make caramized red onions on cool breezy days because the house has that wonderful/odd/unusual/sweet odor for days... Still trying to figure out how to air out the house faster.
Teri

gosh, Kathy, there's nothing unique about the labels I like. I got the tip to that site from someone here a few years ago, and ordered a few sheets each of several kinds to try, including some that I got 'cos they happened to be on sale that day.

One thing I like is to have them small enough to fit in the label space on a jelly jar; I can a lot in small jars and it bugs me for the label to be spilling onto the bumpy part of the jar.

Anyway, that year I used a different colour of label for each product. I thought I'd like that, as it would make it easy to tell what was what at a glance. But when it was all on the pantry shelf I found the brown kraft ones looked the best to me. They look kind of homey and simple, don't draw attention to themselves, and don't clash with any colour of food. (The bright yellow labels on red tomato sauce were a bit much, for e.g. ;-) )

It also seemed to me that the brown Kraft ones were somewhat easier to remove, but that also depends on how long they've been on, etc. --- I didn't do a randomized trial. ;-p I do sometimes still need to get out the Goo Gone even for them.

And I now use a different colour of felt PEN for each kind of product to help differentiate at a glance.

Anyhow, I ran out of brown labels. I still have several other colours but, as mentioned, I decidd I like how the pantry looks when everything has a brown on on it so almost nothing from this year is labelled.

Luckily, there is a lot less this year than most years, especially of the tomato products, which are the ones that most need labelling ot keep them straight. So far I am pretty sure I know what's what except for that mystery syrup. But I am sure I'll forget soon.....................

Z

Wow, matching labels? I just scribble the contents/date on the lid with a Sharpie and call it good. I loathe trying to get old labels off, and some jars have very old label remnants on them still. However, I do like the looks of the food in the jars and have been known to spend a fair amount of time in the "doom room" (basement pantry room) rearranging them all... the rest of the house looks like a DMZ, but my basement pantry is clean and organized. :-D

That said, brown craft paper labels sound very nice - earthy, simple, honest and not too cloyingly sweet. Thanks for the tip; I'll check them out - Christmas is coming! :-)