Franklin County (PA) Gardeners: Victory Garden 2012 Log

1944 WW II Victory Garden Poster

"Waste not want not" is a philosophy ingrained in me by my grandmother, so preserving what we grow is an important part of any vegetable garden learning experience. We have to do it safely, though.

The National Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia is the go to site for information about preserving fresh produce safely.

Their book, So Easy to Preserve, along with the Ball Blue Book of Canning and the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning are reputable sources for tested, up-to-date procedures and recipes.

The Penn State Extension Food Safety Blog also has timely posts and tested recipes on the subject, as do other Land Grant University sites.

Lots of research and testing has gone into updating the procedures for water bath and pressure canning since the mid 1990's, so it's important to follow the newer research-based methods. Many older recipes and mechanisms were determined to be unsafe during the research.

If you are determined to can your grandmother’s recipe and you want do so safely, you might contact Martin Lo at ymlo@umd.edu - He’s a food science professor at the University of Maryland who operates a private laboratory that can test your recipe for a fee.

In the meantime, here are two fact sheets describing the pathogen Clostridium botulinum, the organism that can cause Botulism from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Colorado State University.