I always experience a twinge of nostalgia when I put up my last jar of home- canned apple- sauce. It reminds me of the years - actually decades - of home-canning I used to do when my children were little. (Pictured above: Cranberry applesauce). I had four large garden plots with the Metropolitan Park District, and I grew many of our vegetables.
These are the last of my tomatoes this year, brought in early to avoid getting damaged by frost.Garden-grown vegetables just have a flavor and zest that cannot be found in produce picked and processed by giant food companies. When I had my garden, I picked corn, peas, beans, and tomatoes every day, and made the most wonderful salads. I even grew my own herbs, like cilantro, parsley, oregano and mint.
Some years, if I had the seeds, I experimented with buckwheat and millet, and grew my own clover and oats, which I fed to the birds. The back rows of my plots always had squash, sunflowers and climbing beans. The front rows had experimental things, like fava beans, gourds, or purple Peruvian potatoes. The other gardeners would watch to see how these things would grow.
As the carrots would mature, I'd can them in a Harvard sauce, and the same with the beets. Come winter these vegetables would add zest to our evening meals. We'd go berry picking, too, and I'd can at least 12 quarts of Blackberry jam, to go with peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. To this day, many of my kids still yearn for peanut-butter and jelly on a daily basis.
I've processed so much fruit - peaches, cherries, plums, apples and strawberries. Oftentime it was for a syrup or jam, but oftentimes it was whole fruit preserves from local orchards. One year I processed so many cherries from my parents trees, that it lasted us five years. But, everything eventually got used. This year I've only processed the plums from our tree, by making syrup and fruit leather from the skins and pulp. I was able to use everything.
When we found the old apple tree up the Duckabush River, we were determined to visit it every fall, to collect the little red apples. 
This year yielded a bushel, and after I made pies, applesauce bread, and applesauce, I used the 'reject apples' for fruit leather. It takes about 12 hours of drying in the oven at a low temperature, with a little fan attached to the side to circulate the air.
I have made so much fruit leather that I've lost track of my production amount. But, the little apples yielded six cookie sheets worth.
These are my first two sheets. I finished the last batch yesterday. We took some of the fruit leather on our camping trip last weekend, and it was really a hit. It is nice to chew on while hiking.
This year yielded a bushel, and after I made pies, applesauce bread, and applesauce, I used the 'reject apples' for fruit leather. It takes about 12 hours of drying in the oven at a low temperature, with a little fan attached to the side to circulate the air.I have made so much fruit leather that I've lost track of my production amount. But, the little apples yielded six cookie sheets worth.
These are my first two sheets. I finished the last batch yesterday. We took some of the fruit leather on our camping trip last weekend, and it was really a hit. It is nice to chew on while hiking. 
