Every August, AJ Zozulin knows he’ll be canning tomatoes.
“It’s easy to track the seasonality,” he said. “Oh, it’s my birthday? We’re canning tomatoes for 18 hours.”
The bounty of short summers in Minnesota also produces a perennial problem for gardeners and CSA farming subscribers: too much food, not enough time. The rush is on, especially now that home gardens will soon be under threat of the first killing frost.
The overwhelmed sighs — or scuttling around pantries for canning pots — echo throughout the state as resourceful prep-steaders and urban farmers find ways to preserve or pickle or ferment the berries, cucumbers and cabbage otherwise taking up space in the refrigerator.
We’ve got some advice from the experts on how to start preserving produce now to save money later.
Preserving your wallet
Canning is on the rise in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, as more Americans