Can I Avoid BPA While Canning?

Photo from Treehugger
[Charles] I've never canned anything before. Heck, I am just now getting good at growing things in the garden. We recently got one of those free mags that the big box stores ship out to inspire you to come in and buy some stuff and "change your life". This one had an "article" (read - wordy advertisement) about canning your own vegetables and fruit from the garden. Well actually this is something that was on my mind lately because the discussion around the garden often centers on what is available each season. Canning allows you to take things like those awesome tomatoes from summer and bring them out in winter for tomato soup. So anyway, basically all of the traditionally canned stuff in the store has BPA lining the can, yep even the green beans that we eat almost every week!

So canning avoids that with the glass jar right? But wait... what's on that metal lid ? You guessed it! Friggin BPA again! Until our government and all of its corporate arms get rid of this stuff, we are going to have to be dilligent to avoid it. So here you go. I found some lids that don't have them so you can avoid the nasty stuff when you finally get around to storing those awesome strawberries that will make the most amazing pie for Thanksgiving.

One place is called Lehmann's which doesn't come out and say it's BPA free but according some they might be - I'm not convinced yet. The option that most people seem to agree on is called Tattler which is very vocal about its lack of BPA. There are also some jars called Weck that are apparently more expensive but might be found at yard sales. So good luck folks on all that canning (here's the how-to), it sounds like a lot of work but just like gardening the rewards are well worth it.

Community Garden Membership Meeting This Week

Photo from Robin Milcowitz

I visited the Seminole Heights community garden last weekend with my nephew to do a little sweaty volunteer work. It actually ended up being one of those extremely sweaty, change your shirt twice kind of days. Kyle was up for helping, so we went down and did some mowing and trimming. We also got to move some huge piles of horse manure for compost creation. We offered to do general labor because we are pretty new to gardening and can't really be trusted with actual edible plants at this point. However, our tomato and pepper plants in our little garden at home are starting to show early signs of food production.


We had a good time at the garden and shot some photos when it was all done. I always come away from the garden with some new knowledge from the seasoned folks that are consistently working there. Thanks Cindy and Piet! The horse manure apparently has lots of nitrogen but needs to be converted to something a little more user-friendly for the plants to accept it (my limited understanding). So they planted a lot of black eyed peas in this manure heavy compost to do the work. They intend to plow under the peas and use that newly bountiful soil to generate a fall harvest. I hate to see some of the sad poolies (what they call the kiddie pool container gardens) in such a poor state, but summer gardening is tough. I've seen plants wilt in one hot day without watering. The poolies with the peas look amazing though! Huge chia pet mounds of green just shooting for the sky! I hope that this meeting can help re-energize us all and get us back in the garden starting with the big Labor Day planting coming up.


We're not gonna let our first tough summer beat us down! See ya at the garden. Check out the meeting if you're in the hood.





-Charles

This was sent from Robin, the organizer of our local and new community garden in Seminole Heights. Details from her email follow below.

Hello! We have some new things happening! Be sure to check out all the events and take a gander at the front page too! We're adding gardening tips & Green News & Stuff blog entries daily. C U Soon!

Time: August 5, 2009 from 7pm to 8:30pmLocation: Seminole Heights United Methodist ChurchOrganized By: Robin Milcowitz
Event Description:Our first guest speaker is from the USF Engineering Department and they'll be talking about a program they'reworking on that converts trash to energy.Our second speaker is Willow Lamonte! She'll be giving an in-depth talk about organic gardening and she'llalso be answering your questions and helping you with basic trouble-shooting advice. She'll also be bringingin her books and some additional items to show us that she uses in her own garden.We'll have some drinks available. Please feel free to bring some light snacks to share.We'll have our T-shirts available to purchase and bumper stickers too!Don't miss out on this great event!This meeting is also a way for us to reconnect with people we don't get to see at the garden very much and allow people to come in and let us know how you think we're doing. Things we could do better and even some new things we aren't doing yet. We hope you'll join us.


Thank you!