Canning Your Food Supply Gardening Green Beans

Canning your food supply gardening green beans can be very easy, and will give you a way to have great vegetables for the winter.  Knowing how to grow your own food supply is not much good if you can’t preserve the food for use during times when you can’t grow food.

Starting about this time of year, my parents used to start getting the first of the green beans into Mason jars, and canned for the winter.  My mom’s goal was to always have 50-100 quarts of green beans for the winter. Everyone in the family loved them, and I came from a family of four, so we would eat them a lot.

Any type of green bean can be canned, including French style green beans.  My personal favorites, though, are Blue Lake Style heirloom green beans. They grow well, and are easy to keep for seed for the next year. I would simply allow one last section or so of green beans to grow and dry out.  Then, I just store the seed pods to be the basis of the food supply gardening plan for green beans for the next year. Knowing how to grow your own food also involves knowing how to preserve seed for the next season.

But I digress a bit.  You will need 0.5 pounds of green beans to fill one quart jar.  A couple of bushels will prepare 25-40 quarts of green beans.

When it was time to can green beans, we would gather our jars.  We inspect them, to make sure they have no cracks or chips in the top of the jar.  Then, we like to run them through our dish washer, with a high heat dry. You can also thoroughly wash and dry them, then boil the jars for 10 minutes to sterilize them.  We also make sure we have enough lids and rings. Lids can only be used once. Rings can be reused, as long as they are not full of rust and dents. The important thing to remember here is be very, very clean with all your jars, lids, and rings.

I prepare the green beans for canning by washing the beans, and snapping or cutting the ends off each bean. Then, we snap the beans into 1.5 inch pieces. I think this size makes it easy to fit them in a can, and it mimicks the size of canned green beans for the store.

Place your lids into a pan, add water, and bring to a low boil. Then turn down the heat. The hot lids will seal better.

Next, fill your jars with green beans, leaving one inch of space at the top (called head space in most teaching books.) Add about a ½ teaspoon of salt.  Now fill the jar with boiling water up to the one inch line. Add another teaspoon of salt.

Use a cake spatula or butter knife to gently remove any bubbles you see.  If you need to add a touch of water to get back to the line on your rim, do so. Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean towel, and place a lid on the top of the jar. Then you put a ring on, and tighten to just a hand tight level. Don’t over tighten the ring. In addition, don’t try to tighten the rings after the canning is done either. They can break the jar easily.

Slowly and carefully pour boiling water into the jar just covering the green beans. Use a plastic spatula to remove any noticeable air bubbles. Wipe the rim and place the flat lid and screw band tightly onto the jar. Don’t twist the lid on with all your might, just snug them making sure they’re tight.

Following the instructions of your pressure cooker, add around 4 inches of water.  I like to use warm water, so the process goes quicker.  Fill your pressure cooker with jars. Bring your cooker to the correct pressure (which is typically around 11 pounds p.s.i). Cook your green beans for 25-30 minutes.  You need to watch the temperate and adjust to keep the correct pressure.

Take your green beans out of the pressure cooker. Place them on a cooling rack. Let them cool undisturbed for a few hours. If a seal does not take, use a whole new jar and seal.  Betting sick from a jar of green beans that was not handled well can be a very bad thing.

How to grow your own food supply will get a whole lot easier as your skill at canning grows.  Pressure canning your food supply green beans can be one of the easiest vegetables to learn to can.  Having said that, keep a few green beans out for a fresh mess of green beans.