I found this http://www.canningpantry.com/canning-jars.html on Google (I should looked there first!). very reasonable prices. About $1 per Quart jar. Hopefully someone else finds that link useful. Dont be a sucker and pay $8.99 per Quart jar at your dept store. ;)

I think that had to be a misprint. I bought a 12 pack for 8.99 at wally world.

If you have thrift stores around you selling 2nd hand stuff pay them a visit. I have found oogles of canning jars (minus lids and caps) for 10-25 cents each in all sizes.

Still, the price you quoted can't be for a single jar. That would be a case of jars.

Check over the the forum that is all about canning - the Harvest Forum (linked at the top of the page here). There have been several discussions recently on where to buy and best prices on canning supplies.

Unless this was some sort of collector's edition there is no reason you should have to pay even 1/4 that price for a quart jar and I'd be especially suspicious of the source since they are sold by the dozen, not individually.

Dave

Though my mother canned all sorts of vegetables, I could never bring myself to do it once the ease of freezing became so apparent compared to a steamy kitchen and literally hours at the stove. PLUS all the warnings about botulism if you did it wrong!!!!!

I bought a vacuum-sealer for freezing vegetables, and they're still good after 8 or 9 months.

I'd be interested in seeing what the difference in cost is between canning and freezing vegetables, since the OP is looking for the best price on canning supplies.

Watch thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets and estate sales. I've found lots of various sized canning jars at them and sometimes only a dollar for a box full of Ball jelly jars. Also, put the word out to friends and relatives that you are looking for them. Sometimes an older person will have a lot of them they no longer use.

I still freeze some foods, but I don't depend on freezing as much as canning. One really good power outage can strip you of everything you've grown, prepared and frozen. And it did happen to me. Luckily, I lots I'd canned, but it still hurts to lose all that stuff in the freezer.

Bought 250 cases (a dozen jars per case) for $1 per case 2 years ago at a yard sale. The jars were all sizes from pints, quarts, half-gallon, and a full dozen gallon jars. You won't find a price like that often!

They needed to be washed so I set up the dishwasher and did 3 cases per load several times a day for a week, then stored them in plastic bags so they will be ready for canning time.

DarJones

Thanks guys after looking again, in fine print it said "12 jars in a case".. Didn't see that one!, but the picture of the products they only had 1 Jar. [Jar link]

The site btw is Canadiantire, (I live in Canada).

PLUS all the warnings about botulism if you did it wrong!!!!!
I did not know this. This will my first "canning". This has got me seriously thinking whether I will do this or not. This botulism thing looks nasty. Reading about it on Wikipedia. But it does say that Botulism doesn't thrive in high acid foods.

I think this is why you add Lemon juice and salt to your canning and using a pressure cooker.

its nearly impossible to grow anything for less than it would cost you in a supermarket, once you factor in all the costs associated with starting/maintaining the garden, tending to the plants, picking the fruit, preserving the food and then factor in how much your time is worth, it usually ends up costing at least 3-4x more for you to grow your own fruit/veg. that being said the food at the supermarkets is never anywhere near as good as what you can grow yourself and you also get the assurance of knowing exactly what has been used on the plants, and there is a certain joy to be had when growing/cooking your own produce. certain veg will cost you more than 10x to grow yourself. for example lettuce, broccoli, celery, onions, garlic, carrots. think of gardening as more of a hobby, with a delicious final product. i got all my mason jars from my gran, so maybe hit up an old folks home.

madfist willy,
I have to disagree. Unless you get everything that you need from the gardening center every year, gardening doesn't have to cost much money at all. Make your own compost, start plants in old cartons, save your own seed, make your own trellises out of wood from a tree, keep your plants tied up with strips of old underwear, and water with rain you catch off the roof. Your arsenal of gardening tools can consist of just a rake and a shovel. I freeze rather than can but I understand that the same jars can be used year after year?

its nearly impossible to grow anything for less than it would cost you in a supermarket

Madfist_willy,
You are absolutly right. I made two raised bed that are 25 Feet x 5 feet in height and Width. I bought some Topsoil, and it came to $50 for soil. I bought a Greenhouse Heat Mat growing kit another $50, Pots, Miracle grow planting soil, spray bottle, peatmose,perlite... another $50
The final straw was yesterday, I went to buy 2 rolls (50 feet) of chicken wire and it was $70. I was shocked and rubbed my eyes and looked again at the registrer and then told the teller I'm not paying that, not tha I'm desperate for the money, but you got to draw the line somewhere and I put it back.
And I'm not buying tomato cages either, I'm going to use strong sticks tie them to the tomato, going to go the Forest soon and find some good ones. I'm tired of spending money on this. I'm going down frugal street now... ;)

I know that our local freecycle type group (the one I belong to is actually called 'fullcircle') had someone offering a box of canning jars (13) for free over the weekend. (minus the lids) but the lids are not expensive.
Look for your local group and see what is being offered or place a 'want' ad.
I have also got them at yard sales usually for about a quarter a piece.
gg

With some others here, I can chip in also that a garden can be cheaper than store-bought food. It's just that keeping it cheap has to become one of the aspects of your garden that you think about -- part of the hobby.

its nearly impossible to grow anything for less than it would cost you in a supermarket

Sorry but I have to strongly DIS-agree with this. While there may be an initial outlay, if you so choose, to both gardening and home canning, it is just that an initial outlay only. From that point on both activities can be done with little involved but your time. So then it only involves the value you put on your time (and new lids for the canning jars each year at $1.50 a dozen). ;)

As already mentioned, home composting, saving your own seed, making do with what you have, taking care of your equipment, tapping into local free resources, comparative shopping, and doing your homework up front can easily result in far superior food and much cheaper prices than store-bought. Especially so at today's food prices!

lazyhat - botulism isn't a hteat when home canning is done correctly following the tested and approved guidelines. Unfortunately many don't do that. And you are right that botulism cannot survive in a high-acid product (which is why highly acidic foods are not pressure canned). But most things grown in the home vegetable garden are low-acid which is where the pressure canner comes in.

Again, if you are serious considering home canning I strongly encourage you to join us on the Harvest Forum here. We have certified home canning instructors that are regular participants there.

Dave

My 2cents worth. IF you enjoy gardening and have room and IF you enjoy canning, then it is worth it. Also IF you have a problem with all the preservatives in our "commercially" processed food, it is worth it.

I can because I can't have the salt and other preservatives, also I grow for a farmer market, so I can the left-overs that don't sell.

Jars, my mother picks them up at yard sales, usually free and then we sort thru them, not all canning jars can be used with modern equipment. Right now, I probably have close to 100 dozen jars waiting to be used.

Botulism is difficult to grow. As you mentioned, the pH of your product must be higher than 4.5 for botulism to even consider growing. For that matter, there is not a single pathogenic bacteria that can grow and/or produce toxins at a pH below 4.5. Also, if by some unfortunate incident you did can a product that supported C. botulinum, the toxins are deactivated if you cook the substance to over 120 °F. It is not the bacteria, Clostridum botulinum that makes you sick, but the toxins it produces. Most tomato juices have a pH of less than 4.20. Knowing this, you could actually hot fill the jar, close the lid, then invert the jar so the lid is sitting on your counter. No need to boil the jars in a boiling water bath for 40 minutes. Hot fill at temperatures over 200 °F, then invert the jars. If you have a clean lid seal, you will have good product. If for some reason the seal of the jar is bad, your product will grow yeast and/or mold which is easy to distinguish.

As already mentioned, home composting, saving your own seed, making do with what you have, taking care of your equipment, tapping into local free resources, comparative shopping, and doing your homework up front can easily result in far superior food and much cheaper prices than store-bought. Especially so at today's food prices!

Yes the initial outlay is very pricey I'm finding.This is my first year of serious gardening. So far I've had to buy a Growing Light, a Fan, Heat mat, pots, all kinds of soil, bonemeal, and seeds, and now I have to buy a Pressure canner and jars and a Food Dehydrator and a Blender.. blah blah you can see where this is going. But I after that initial outlay of starting, you can reuse everything the following years. :s

lazyhat,

you are being lazy.

My gardening costs about $1000 per year upfront. I grow enough seed in my garden to sell about twice that amount so that my gardening is a net profit. In addition, I get to eat all the fresh veggies I want, can or freeze any that I care to put up, and generally have a healthy and active lifestyle.

DarJones

you could actually hot fill the jar, close the lid, then invert the jar so the lid is sitting on your counter. No need to boil the jars in a boiling water bath for 40 minutes. Hot fill at temperatures over 200 °F, then invert the jars. If you have a clean lid seal, you will have good product.

Yes, theoretically you could do that. But it sure wouldn't be considered safe to do so. And it definitely would not meet the USDA/NCHFP standards which have required additional acid (bottled lemon juice or citric acid) for more than 20 years now.

Jars of tomato juice processed in that manner have repeatedly tested positive for listeria and salmonella, and sadly even c. botulism. The latter simply because some newer varieties of hybrid tomatoes do NOT have a pH that acidic.

Many old canning practices, once considered safe, are no longer approved because of the ongoing testing. And they surely should not be encouraged.

Still, this isn't the forum to get into a debate on safe canning practices. That sort of discussion belongs on the Harvest forum as home canning is its focus.

Dave

"Yes, theoretically you could do that. But it sure wouldn't be considered safe to do so. And it definitely would not meet the USDA/NCHFP standards which have required additional acid (bottled lemon juice or citric acid) for more than 20 years now.

Jars of tomato juice processed in that manner have repeatedly tested positive for listeria and salmonella, and sadly even c. botulism. The latter simply because some newer varieties of hybrid tomatoes do NOT have a pH that acidic.

Many old canning practices, once considered safe, are no longer approved because of the ongoing testing. And they surely should not be encouraged."

I won't get in a debate on here either, but Salmonella is dispatched at around 165 °F the same with Listeria. It is a much larger problem in raw tomatoes and/or refrigerated/frozen tomatoes as listeria is NOT killed by refrigeration and/or freezing. The day salmonella is not killed at 165 F is the day the USDA moves the safe-cooking temperature of chicken higher than 165 °F and that temperature even has some built in error.

If jars of tomato juice have repeatedly been tested positive for salmonella and listeria then it is clear that all locations inside that jar did not meet the minimum temperature (165 F for a couple of minutes) to kill those organisms, hence, the reason a hot-filled jar needs to be inverted right after sealing.

I am not here to debate the USDA suggestions for canning tomato juice, but there is plenty of error built into their recommendations because very few home canners have the proper education in thermoprocessing to correctly home-can products without a rather large error built into the process.

If anyone cares, in the industrial food thermoprocessing community for low-acid foods, it takes 2 minutes at 250 °F to kill the spores of C. botulinum. This means that if you have particulates in the product, the center of those particulates must also meet that heat requirement. Most food companies, if not all, build in their own error and usually heat the low-acid food product to an equivalent of 250 °F for 6 minutes, three times the minimum requirements.

Sorry for digressing, but I am not advocating not following the USDA guidelines, but stating there is a lot of built in error for the novice home-canner.

If anyone cares, in the industrial food thermoprocessing community for low-acid foods, it takes 2 minutes at 250 °F to kill the spores of C. botulinum.

I've worked in Picklling Factory when I was younger. I worked all the belt, this is what they do.. They did peppers and pickles when I was there.
The peppers are dump into a feed, which dices them up and tumbles them around in hot water, then they are feed up a belt to where people scoop them quickly into the jars, and then the the jar moves to a station that fills them up with hot brime, then a machine slams a lid on it, then they move threw the thing called the "pasteurizer", which basically the can move slowly up a belt with steaming hot water spray on them or something, then there quickly packed into boxes and put into the warehouse.

how in the world would the FDA allow that kind of packing????? The pasteurizer is "in theory" (enjoy that digdirt?) heating the headspace above the needed temperatures to kill bacteria that might be in the headspace.

For pickles, cucumbers are not naturally acidic so the cucumbers are acidified for a period of time before they are put into their final containers. Many places acidify them for as long as a week. Well, Claussen is a little shorter, hence the reason for refrigeration instead of shelf-stable.

I doubt too many people care, but I am a degreed food scientist who has been thermoprocessing commercially for 18 years, even recognized by the FDA/USDA as a process authority. In other words, the FDA/USDA recognizes my experience and record with thermoprocessing. My commercial processes do not have to be approved by the government due to my experience.

I do not claim to be an expert in tomato growing, etc., but I do know thermoprocessing which is canning much better than 99.999999999% of the population on earth.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

johnnygarden for such an authority did you not know that vinegar is acidic?? I'm pretty sure that pickles are packed in a vinegar solution. Most canners that I know use it to lower their PH below 4.0....Just my 2 cents.

if your going to think about gardening from a financial aspect you have to factor in how much you think your time is worth(all the other costs are negligible in comparison) take minimum wage for example(8$/hour where i am(Canada)) how many hours do you spend in total working the soil, transporting manure/compost/fertilizer and then working that in, starting the seedlings, potting the seedlings up, watering them, planting them in the final beds, tending/fertizlizing/watering them, picking the fruit, preserving the fruit, etc. for an example we'll use tomatoes. so just a conservative estimate would be an avg. of 1 hour a day. say you start the seedling indoors april 1st and the first frost comes October 1st. 183 days...so your labour alone at minimum wage costs you aprox $1464.00(CAD), unless your growing enough to sell at a market(or are feeding a family of 5+) you will be hard pressed to make your tomato crop worth that(keep in mind that the larger the crop the more time it takes to tend/preserve). and then throw your additional annual costs ontop of the labour along with any other "accessories" and you can start to understand. there are thousands of reasons to grow your own fruit and veg, but "because its cheaper" is a lie. with the exception exotic fruit/veg, fruit and veg are the cheapest items in the store(some even cheaper than bendy straws and tooth picks). ex. costco sells 3 heads of lettuce for $1(i assume GMO, irradiated, heavy on the pesticide and fertilized literally with the blood of Honduran children). but nothing you can buy in the store will even come close quality wise with what you grow, but it is cheaper and more convenient. bottom line 90% of veg is dirt cheap, don't think about the price point when gardening, do it because you enjoy doing it and absolutely love the final product and the moments they can create.

sorry if I offended you by having some knowledge and sharing, but, maybe you better concentrate on reading comprehension before commenting. I believe my post quite clearly states that cucumbers are not acidic but are acidified over a period of a week before they are canned/jarred. So to answer your question, my post clearly states that cucumbers are acidified (acid added to lower the pH). Just so you know, for any process to be considered high acid, any and all particulates must reach a pH equilibrium within 24 hours of the final packaging. This is checked by draining off the liquid and checking the pH then taking the remaining solids, blending to a puree and checking the pH after 24 hours of packing. If the puree and brine do not have the same pH at that time, the process is bad and the product must be trashed, reworked. Of course, the process is considered good only if the equilibrium pH is below 4.50. Amazing the safe-guards the FDA and USDA have inacted to insure safe food for the public.

Anything else you would like to know about thermoprocessing/canning? I work with it every single day. And, to answer a question that may be asked, I am not an expert at tomato growing, hence, the reason I joined and read this forum about every day.

I'm trying to grow more pricier items, like red bell peppers that cost like $2 each at the store; I'm going to try and get a whole bundle of those. Also heirloom tomatoes go for $4 or $5 per pound at the farmers market. Well worth my time if I can get a couple hundred pounds. Also those salad greens that cost $5 per bag, will try to get a bunch of that. Sugar snap peas, you betcha; I can't even buy those fresh. Carrots and celery, not so much since that is only 60 cents per pound. Much more productive than watching TV. I know a guy who plants his garden in unamended soil and then forgets about it all summer. His plants fall all over the ground and he still gets loads of veges. Some things are maintenance free like chives and onions, they just continue to appear. Plus if you sit on the porch and wait for rabbits, you can have a stew by the end of the day.

Looking at the prices in the grocery store is deceptive. If you are an organic gardener like me, it is fairer to use the prices on organic vegetables like at Whole Foods, then the advantages of growing your own are greater. It's things like the fences to keep out deer that raises the cost of what I grow, though they will last a long time. This year I may get greenhouse plastic to cover some tomatoes, which will add a lot to my costs, and will only last 4 years. But if it increases my yields significantly and extends my fall harvests a month, it could be worth it.

I also like to freeze instead of can. True is it risky from the point of view of potential power failure. But my MIL canned a lot and gave a lot away. I've seen the jars of unused fruit left in other people's pantries after they expired... My MIL used lots of regular jars and mayonnaise jars to can as well, not kosher but she did it.