The recipes
41 ways to put the garden up
Every one follows a tested recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, Bernardin, Ball or an extension service, with its processing time copied exactly and the safety lines that matter set out before the ingredients. Organised by what you have too much of.
Tomatoes · 8
- Water-bath canning
Crushed tomatoes, water-bath canned
The plainest, most useful jar in the pantry: tomatoes and nothing else, ready for any sauce in February.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 10 kg (22 lb) of tomatoes; 6.4 kg (14 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Whole or halved tomatoes in juice, water-bath canned
Whole peeled tomatoes under their own juice — the jar you open for a winter stew when you want pieces, not purée.
7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9.5 kg (21 lb) of tomatoes, plus extra tomatoes for the juice; 5.9 kg (13 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Plain tomato sauce, water-bath canned
Unseasoned tomato sauce boiled down from juice — thin for soups, thick for pasta — with every flavour decision left for the day you open it.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars of thin sauce from 16 kg (35 lb) of tomatoes, or of thick sauce from 21 kg (46 lb); for 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars use 9.5 kg (21 lb) thin or 12.7 kg (28 lb) thick · 2 hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Choice salsa, water-bath canned
The tested salsa that lets you choose the peppers and onions — mild or fierce — as long as the measured cups and the lemon juice stay exactly as written.
About 6 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Tomato juice, water-bath canned
A clear use for a glut of soft, juicy slicers: hot-pressed juice that will not separate in the jar.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 10.4 kg (23 lb) of tomatoes; 6.4 kg (14 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Green tomato salsa verde
The frost-night answer for a counter full of green tomatoes: a sharp, cumin-scented salsa verde in small jars.
About 6 × 250 ml (half-pint) jars · 1 hour active
The recipe → - Freezing
Whole tomatoes, frozen without blanching
The zero-effort way to save tomatoes on a night you have none to spare: wash, core, bag. The skins slip off under the tap in January.
A 4 L freezer bag holds about 2 kg of medium tomatoes · 10 minutes active
The recipe → - Drying
Dried cherry and paste tomatoes
Halved cherry tomatoes dried to chewy, sweet-sour coins — the concentrated taste of the whole summer in a jar. Kept dry, not in oil.
About 70–150 g of dried tomatoes from 2 kg of fresh cherry or paste tomatoes · 30 minutes active
The recipe →
Sweet peppers · 1
- Freezing
Roasted peppers, frozen
Char them while the grill is still out, then pull a bag of smoky strips for pizza or chili all winter. Sweet or hot, same method.
About 1 kg of fresh peppers gives 500–600 g of roasted strips, enough for four 250 ml tubs · 40 minutes active
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Hot peppers · 3
- Pickling
Home-style pickled jalapeños
Taqueria-style jalapeño strips with carrot and onion in a plain vinegar brine — the tested, lime-free way to put up a hot-pepper glut.
About 6 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1 hour active
The recipe → - Fermenting
Fermented hot sauce (refrigerator only)
Brined peppers, soured for a few weeks and blended: the sauce every pepper-grower ends up making. Ours stays in the fridge, because nobody has published a tested canning time for it.
About 500 ml of sauce from 500 g of peppers · 30 minutes active
The recipe → - Drying
Dried hot peppers and chili flakes
A year of chili flakes from a single plant: slice, dry, and crumble. Gloves on, windows open, children at a distance.
1 kg of fresh hot peppers gives about 100–150 g dried — a full 500 ml jar of flakes · 30 minutes active
The recipe →
Cucumbers · 3
- Pickling
Quick fresh-pack dill pickles
Kosher-style dills without the weeks of fermenting: an overnight salt soak, a hot spiced brine, and a short bath.
7–9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1 hour over two days active
The recipe → - Pickling
Bread-and-butter pickles
Sweet, turmeric-yellow cucumber and onion slices — the pickle most children will actually eat, and the one that uses up the big cucumbers.
About 8 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
The recipe → - Fermenting
Brine-fermented dill pickles
Real deli pickles: cucumbers, dill, garlic and a salt brine, soured by the same bacteria that make kraut. No vinegar bite, just depth.
About 2 × 1 L jars of pickles per 4 L (1 gallon) crock · 30 minutes active
The recipe →
Zucchini · 1
- Pickling
Zucchini relish
Bernardin’s hot-dog relish for the zucchini that got away — a touch of horseradish and one hot pepper give it its bite.
About 6 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours over two days active
The recipe →
Winter squash · 1
- Freezing
Roasted squash and pumpkin purée, frozen
The safe way to put up smooth pumpkin for pie, soup and muffins — in the freezer, in the amounts your recipes call for.
A 2 kg butternut or pie pumpkin gives about 1 L of purée, four 250 ml portions · 30 minutes active
The recipe →
Pumpkins · 1
- Pressure canning
Pumpkin and winter squash cubes, pressure canned
The only safe way to put squash in a jar: firm cubes in water, which you drain and mash the day you bake the pie.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 4.5 kg (10 lb) of squash, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 7.3 kg (16 lb) · 1¼ hours active
The recipe →
Carrots · 2
- Pickling
Pickled carrots
Sweet-sour carrot coins with mustard and celery seed — a bright lunchbox pickle from the roots that will not all fit in the cold room.
About 4 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 45 minutes active
The recipe → - Pressure canning
Carrots, pressure canned
For the carrots that will not fit in the cold room: sweet, soft, and ready for soup, stew or a toddler’s plate in a minute.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 5 kg (11 lb) of topped carrots, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 8 kg (17½ lb) · 1 hour active
The recipe →
Beets · 1
- Pickling
Pickled beets
Sweet-sour beet slices with cinnamon and clove — the pickle that makes a winter plate look like something.
About 8 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
The recipe →
Potatoes · 1
- Pressure canning
Potatoes, cubed and pressure canned
Hot-packed cubes that go straight from jar to frying pan: the fastest home-fries you will ever make, from the potatoes that would not keep.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 6 kg (13 lb) of potatoes, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9 kg (20 lb) · 1¼ hours active
The recipe →
Garlic · 1
- Pickling
Refrigerator pickled garlic (garlic in vinegar)
Whole peeled cloves kept under full-strength vinegar in the fridge — the safe way to have mellow pickled garlic through the winter without a canner.
A 250 ml (half-pint) jar holds about 2 heads of garlic (around 25 cloves); scale up jar by jar · 20 minutes active
The recipe →
Cabbage · 1
- Fermenting
Sauerkraut, crock or jar fermented
Cabbage, salt and three weeks of patience. The oldest recipe in this library, and the one a six-year-old can make almost entirely alone.
About 2 L from a 2.3 kg (5 lb) batch in a 4 L jar; 9 L from 11 kg (25 lb) in a 20 L crock · 45 minutes active
The recipe →
Green beans · 3
- Pickling
Dilly beans (pickled green beans)
Whole beans standing to attention in a garlicky dill brine — the first jar most families let the children pack.
About 8 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 45 minutes active
The recipe → - Pressure canning
Green beans, pressure canned
The first thing most people pressure-can, and the jar that teaches the whole method: plain beans, salt if you like, nothing else.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 4 kg (9 lb) of beans, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 6.4 kg (14 lb) · 1 hour active
The recipe → - Freezing
Frozen green beans and peas
The two crops that come all at once and go over in days. Three minutes in boiling water for beans, a minute and a half for peas, and they are saved.
About 1 kg of beans fills three 1 L freezer bags; 1 kg of pea pods gives about 400 g of shelled peas · 30–45 minutes active
The recipe →
Dry beans · 1
- Pressure canning
Dry beans, soaked and pressure canned
Your own shelled beans — or a 10 kg sack from the store — turned into ready-to-eat jars without the overnight planning every single time.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 1.5 kg (3¼ lb) of dry beans, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 2.3 kg (5 lb) · 1 hour, plus soaking active
The recipe →
Sweet corn · 1
- Freezing
Frozen sweet corn, on the cob and whole kernel
Blanched the same day it was picked, August corn tastes like August in February. Kernels for chowder, a few cobs for a treat.
About 1 kg of kernels from a dozen average ears; a dozen cobs fills a 4 L freezer bag · 45 minutes active
The recipe →
Apples · 4
- Water-bath canning
Applesauce, water-bath canned
Sound apples — seconds are fine once the bruises are cut away — into the easiest jar of the year; no added acid needed, and sugar optional.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9.5 kg (21 lb) of apples; 6.1 kg (13½ lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Apple butter, water-bath canned
A long, slow pot of apples, cider and spice cooked down to something that mounds on a spoon — the whole house smells of it.
About 9–10 × 500 ml (pint) jars, or twice as many 250 ml · 1½ hours active
The recipe → - Drying
Dried apple rings
Leathery, chewy, lunchbox-sized apple: the drying recipe to start with, because it forgives almost everything except skipping the dip.
About 500 g of dried rings from 5 kg of fresh apples (they lose about nine-tenths of their weight) · 40 minutes active
The recipe → - Drying
Fruit leather, apple or berry
Purée poured thin and dried into a roll-up: the snack children ask for by name, made from the fruit that was too soft for anything else.
500 ml (2 cups) of purée makes one 33 × 38 cm (13 × 15 inch) sheet, about 8 roll-ups · 20 minutes active
The recipe →
Pears · 1
- Water-bath canning
Pear halves in light syrup or juice
Bartletts picked hard and ripened in a box, then put up in a light syrup or plain apple juice — winter dessert on a shelf.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 8 kg (17½ lb) of pears; 5 kg (11 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
The recipe →
Strawberries · 2
- Water-bath canning
Strawberry jam with Original Fruit Pectin
Canada’s jam. Eight jars in under an hour, set every time, from the berries picked the same morning or from the freezer in January.
About 8 × 250 ml jars · 40 minutes active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Strawberry rhubarb jam with Original Fruit Pectin
June in a jar: the first strawberries and the last tender rhubarb, set with powdered pectin so the tartness stays sharp.
About 6 × 250 ml jars · 40 minutes active
The recipe →
Raspberries · 2
- Freezing
Tray-frozen berries: raspberries, strawberries, haskap
No sugar, no syrup, nothing to measure — a single layer on a tray, then a bag you can pour from. The way to save a picking before it moulds overnight.
A standard baking sheet holds about 1 kg of berries per freezing round · 15 minutes active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Raspberry jam with liquid pectin
The brightest jar on the shelf, from the canes that fruit again in September. Liquid pectin keeps the cooking short and the flavour fresh.
About 6 × 250 ml jars · 30 minutes active
The recipe →
Haskap (honeyberry) · 1
- Freezing
Haskap freezer jam (no cooking, no canning)
Nobody has published a tested canning recipe for haskap, so this one follows Bernardin’s tested freezer-jam method for blueberries instead: raw fruit, freezer pectin, ten minutes, and it tastes exactly like the berry.
About 5 × 250 ml jars · 15 minutes active
The recipe →
Basil · 1
- Freezing
Basil pesto cubes, frozen
Pick the basil before the first frost night takes it, blitz it, freeze it in cubes. One cube on hot pasta in February is the whole point of the herb bed.
About 375 ml of pesto, 24 ice-cube-tray cubes, from 2 cups of leaves · 20 minutes active
The recipe →
Thyme, oregano, sage and rosemary · 1
- Drying
Dried herbs, air-dried and dehydrated
Bunches of thyme hanging from a nail, basil laid flat in the dehydrator: the whole herb bed in six jars before the frost takes it.
A loose grocery bag of fresh herbs dries down to one or two 250 ml jars · 20 minutes active
The recipe →