My first batch of salsa for the year!

We were running drastically low on salsa! I canned about 45 pints and several quarts back in 2013, but my husband is a voracious Salsasorus. He would've run out of stock within a year if he hadn't periodically interspersed store bought salsa throughout this past year.

My sister supplied me with a bunch of hothouse tomatoes and peppers, so I whipped out my salsa recipe and got to work. Of course my preference would be to use homegrown tomatoes from my garden, most likely Romas or Amish Paste tomatoes, but free tomatoes are hard to pass up for salsa. If I was only going to eat the tomatoes and not make salsa, I would've passed on the hothouse variety because they're hard, too perfect looking (which weirds me out), and often flavorless. But once you mix enough tomato paste and seasonings to the salsa, it's not that bad!

So did my salsa actually win an award? No, but that's what the label says, so people will believe it. But it is actually the best salsa recipe I ever tried, and I've tried many recipes. This recipe came from my husband's relative and is made by many people in his family now.

Award Winning Canning Jar Labels can be customized with your own text 

28 pints, 1 quarts, and 1 very happy husband. Yippie!
The Custom Kraft Paper canning labels look good on salsa :)

Download this chart to keep track of the produce that you can this year!

Shop our Fruit & Vegetable Canning Labels & Canning Jar Labels on CanningCrafts.com

Wedding and Baby shower canning favor jar labels

When I first started CanningCrafts, I was primarily focused on designing canning jar labels for those who preserved their own food. I couldn't find any nice jar labels for my salsa that I wanted to give away for gifts, so I ended up making my own.

I never once thought about labels for wedding favors! I've actually only been to a couple of weddings and didn't even realize people gave canned jams or honey away as favors. So once I started getting a handful of requests for wedding labels, I knew it should be something that I should expand into.

So now I have plenty of wedding labels available in rustic kraft paper and vintage style designs. I'll also slowly be adding a few more baby shower favors to the mix.

This wedding label can be customized with your initials, wedding date, and saying.
Love is Sweet, Spread the Love, Jam Packed With Love, Happily Ever After,
Love Sweet Love, Forever Begins Today, Thank You, Save The Date,
Custom Jam Name (whatever is in your jar, or other custom text)

Oval labels fit perfectly on the Quilted Ball canning jars.

I also have several new custom baby shower labels. These designs are customized with a name and date.

These baby shower canning jar favor labels come in pink, blue, green, or vintage colors.

I found some great new polka dot pastel fabrics and ribbons great for baby shower favors.

I also have a handful of new cottage chic labels. These would work well for baby showers or jams and jellies.

Cottage Chic Flower Canning Jar labels 

Cottage Chic Burlap Canning Jar labels 

Cottage Chic Plaid Canning jar labels 

Cottage Chic Red & Blue Canning jar labels

2015 Garden

It's Tomato time again!!! Yea! I just started some of my tomatoes today. Since I usually have a number of volunteers from the previous year, I decided to scale back a little on the ones I start indoors. It's fun to see which varieties spring forth in the garden, although they usually tend to be cherry tomatoes. One cherry tomato plant is more than enough, but allowing the volunteers to live almost always means we have more than one cherry tomato plant.

My husband's cousin planted around 15 cherry tomato plants in her first garden. I'm not sure if she didn't realize how prolific cherry plants were or if she really just loved them. Near the end of the season, she was certainly sick of them. But she didn't want anything to go to waste, so she actually made salsa with a blue million cherry tomatoes by squeezing each little one out of their skin. That's a lot of work, but her salsa is the best I've ever had, so it was most likely worth it.

I think I finalized my garden plans. I say "think" because I usually chart my bed out, then once it's time for planting, I tend to toss my chart out and throw stuff wherever I want. So much for the planting chart :D

Here's what's going in this year:

• Scarlet Nantes Carrot
• Kuroda Long Carrot
• All American Parsnip (planting this last year, but it didn't take, so I have new seed to try)
• Red Winter Kale
• Frisee Endive
• Salad Blend Lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson, Green & Red Salad Bowl, Marvel of Four Seasons, Bibb)
• Little Gem Romain Lettuce
• Green Towers Romain Lettuce
• Valentine Mesclun Lettuce
• Rainbow Blend Swiss Chard
• Amish Paste Tomato
• Black Krim Tomato
• Seed Savers Exchange Organic German Butterball Potato from City Folks Farm Shop
• High Mowing Organic Rose Finn Fingerling Potato
• Provider or Blue Lake Green Bean
• Green onions

That sounds like a lot for a a 6' x 16' raised bed. I'll do succession planting for the lettuce and beans, then probably do some carrots in the fall. Hopefully I'll have a little more room in the garden since I'm hoping to plant the potatoes in a trash can so they can grow vertically. 

It's going to be a year for making salsa, so I plan to do at least 10 tomato plants. Amish Paste is a good solid tomato for salsa. Black Krim is the BEST tomato I've ever planted and really beautiful as well. 

A little bit of Endive and Kale goes a long way, so I don't plan to go crazy there. Although I may try to dehydrate my Kale this year to make my own green supplements, so maybe I can sneak in a few more plants than my husband would like.

I haven't planted the Rainbow Chard before, although I've purchased it at the farmer's market a few times. It's almost too pretty to eat. I'm not a "cut flower" kinda person, but I would totally put Rainbow Chard in a vase for a centerpiece. I've always had success with the Rhubard and Fordhook Chards, so I'm optimistic this variety will be a super star in the garden this year.

I can hardly wait for the season to start!!!