Angie Knight would have laughed had anyone told her in February she’d be canning tomatoes, putting up squash or pickling peppers by July. Few ideas could have seemed more outlandish. But that was pre-pandemic. Most “firsts” wrought by COVID-19 have been unwelcome ones. Some of its lessons, however, have constructive — even revelatory — consequences. One, for example, is the rise in the number of first-time home gardeners. Knight is one of them.
Cabin fever induced by weeks of shelter-at-home and three children distance-learning under the same roof sent the Columbus mom digging in the dirt this past spring. Having never vegetable-gardened before, she and her husband studied up on the basics and mapped off a manageable trial plot, about 16-by-25-feet, in a corner of the big backyard. They put out a smattering of strawberries, corn, peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash, onion, cantaloupe and watermelon. The kids helped.
The whole family, used to buying everything at a grocery, shared in the excitement of watching flowering strawberry produce fruit, the squash start to form, first tomatoes make an appearance and melons no bigger than a ping pong ball one day double in size the next. The harvest is enjoyed at the family table. But gardening often leads to the next level — canning, preserving, “putting up” some of that produce for later. It was commonplace during Knight’s great-grandparents’ era, but to many it’s become a lost art.
“I don’t want anything that we’ve grown to go to waste,” declared Knight.
So, a few days ago, she decided to start with tomatoes. The thought of using a water bath method — jars in boiling water — made her pause. Memories of a past kitchen mishap involving a hot dish, cold water and shattered glass everywhere still lingered.
“I’ve been kind of apprehensive, and I sat there for almost two weeks trying to tell myself, OK, you need to get up and can today,” she said. “I was afraid I’d burst every jar in the house and have tomatoes all over the walls.”
Canning cavalry
A couple of YouTube videos on canning tomatoes without using a water bath made the process seem doable. Knight relied heavily on a video by Linda’s Cinema (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmTH_q1usI).
She also considered herself lucky to have elder friends experienced in lost arts. Two of them, Janice Nelms and Jeanette Basson, were sounding boards and founts of knowledge.
“Once I watched the videos and then consulted and made sure those people on YouTube were telling the truth, I thought, OK, I can do this,” said Knight.
And she did, peeling and chopping, boiling and stirring — turning out 9 pint jars with about 22 tomatoes in her first try. (Results will vary depending on tomato size.) She still has plenty to learn, she said, but that initial session has proven that few sounds are as satisfying as the “pop” when the lid on a jar of canned tomatoes correctly seals.
“These (jars) will be gone by winter. We’ll use this for vegetable soup; I like my soup very red, very tomato-y,” said Knight. “You just can’t get much better than the taste of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes, like these were when they went into the jars.”
Getting grounded
Knight’s experience of growing a first garden, canning a first harvest, is not much different than probably thousands of other pandemic gardeners realizing they are capable of “more.” But her inspiration is unique to her. Yes, there’s the desire to become more sustainable, to eat healthier. But the biggest driver, she said, was thinking particularly of two sets of her great-grandparents. The scope of their connection to the earth has become clearer in the past 11 months, since Knight’s mother passed away and she has become interested in researching and scanning hundreds of family photographs dating back to the early 1900s, through world wars and the Great Depression.
“Knowing we come from a farming family, finding the photos and documentation of farm life and what it was like for them, that’s stuck with me,” the great-granddaughter said.
“Thinking of their gardens and the hard, hard times they had to live in, little electricity, no power tools, no air conditioning; it was all by hand. We have no idea how hard it was.”
Knight believes that determination, which she said passed down through subsequent generations, is motivating.
When looking at new challenges, whether gardening or facing down a pandemic, she remembers what a friend said to her soon after her mother’s passing.
“She told me, you’re more like your mama than you ever knew, and you’re going to feel her spirit in you, and you’ll find yourself able to do things you didn’t think you were able to do before,” she recounted.
She likes to think those who came before her would smile over the “new” old skills she’s tackling. She taught herself the basics of sewing a few months ago as well.
“Learning to sew by doing, learning to garden, growing my own food, canning and preserving my own food — I can’t help it, but these people are in my head every day,” Knight said.
After sealing up those jars of tomatoes, with nary a one burst, she took a deep breath.
“I just looked to the heavens above and one of the first people that popped in my head is Great-Granny Ruby. I just said, ‘I did it. I did it.'”
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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