Peaches, Peaches, Peaches

I spent last weekend in Southern Oregon with the main purpose of attending "Peach-a-palooza" at Harry & David's Country Village store. Once a year they sell their peaches amazingly cheap. This year they were 20 cents per pound.

My aunt, friend, brother and I all left my mom's house at 5 am to head over.

The peaches were plentiful and after waiting in line til 7 we started filling our totes. We got into a good rhythm and within 15 minutes we had loaded all 20 of our totes, a total of 677 pounds!!

We were home by 9 and ready for the first batch to hit the canners at 10:30 am. It was a LLLLLLLOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG day! My sister in law's baby shower was in the middle of the afternoon and we took the last batch out of the canners at 10:30 pm.

In 8 hours (we spent 4 at the baby shower) we managed to get done 41 quarts of sliced peaches (some preseved with honey, some with coconut sugar and some with organic cane sugar), 51 pints of peach sauce/puree, and 30 pints of jam made. It was crazy! That was only from half the peaches!

Be watching for more posts on recipes to make your own canned sliced peaches, peach sauce and peach jam.

Here is our set up that we used. We had two canners and a water bath set up. It is very strongly advised against for using propane or gas to heat your canner when you are pressuring it because the heat is inconsistent and usually way too many BTUs. We only used the water bath method for all of ours and all three canners were under constant supervision the entire time.

I also use and love my Presto 23 Quart Pressure Canner . It is tall enough to double layer the pints and half pints so you can process a double batch and get twice as much done in the same amount of time. I have used it for pressurizing and water bathing and it works like a champ. If you are a serious canner, this is a must!