Preserving the Harvest: Green Beans

Our Kentucky Wonder Beans have done really well this year, considering the late start they had. About two weeks ago, Katie frenched a whole bunch of green beans and blanched and froze them. She got 10 quart bags full and for our family we sometimes use as many as 2 quarts of beans each meal. So Katie put up enough for at least five meals. Yummm. I asked Momma this last time if I could can some more beans, because we were using the green beans, that we canned earlier this summer, more quickly than we originally thought.
Owen, Becca, Carrie and I picked the beans this time (Usually Momma and the little girls would pick the beans) and got a laundry basket full. All our big pots weren't big enough! The little girls, Owen and I spent the afternoon snapping the green beans. In the evening, Momma and I started to snap them into 2" pieces and James who was sitting with Daddy, signed that he wanted to help and came over to help and so did Becca. James helped snapping beans, and did an excellent job of breaking them into the right size. He developed some funny techniques for snapping beans. Once after James had finished a bean, he looked at us and said 'meen' and did the sign for bean. The Signing Time dvd that has the bean sign, we get from the library up at Egleston's and it had been awhile since James had watched it. So we were pretty excited that James was using signs that he doesn't use on a daily basis.

We washed the beans and since they need to be pressure canned, saved them till morning. In the morning, I started water to boil and filled the jars with the green beans. After I screwed the lids on, we had a total of 14 quarts and 2 meals worth of little beans. Now we're just waiting to take off the canner lid and see if all the jars sealed.

Hannah