A Challenge

While I really don't care about other people's medicine cabinets (who really wants to know that the person who made their dinner is self-treating a foot fungus?), I do love to see what other people's kitchens look like. So, when I came across this challenge from Erin, I took it.

"I know I'm the last person to be issuing demands and challenges since I've been such a bad blogger lately, but since I put up the kitchen photo and it is that time of year, how 'bout you share a photo of where you do your canning and a photo of what you have stashed away so far?  I'll call this the "Medicine Cabinet" challenge, because you have to admit that for us like minded folks looking at photos of other's canning spaces and under-bed storage pantries is like other peoples' fascination with medicine cabinets!"

Now, some people cleaned up their mess before snapping pictures for their blogs, but I didn't.  I am showing you my mess that stays around pretty much all summer long. I look forward to getting it out each spring and look equally forward to putting it away each fall.

Here we go. First up is where I actually can. Since I have one of these

I have to use this to do my canning. It is a turkey fryer. I could do water bath canning on my flat top stove, but the turkey fryer heats the water so  much more quickly. I also use this for my pressure canner. It keeps the heat outside and is close enough for me to hear it. Eventually I hope to get a gas stove, but until then this is my method.

Then, I bring in my produce and set it on my porch. This porch is where everything gets set. When I clean up my kitchen but am too lazy to take something like the dehydrator down to the basement, it goes out to the porch. When I buy a load of jars at a garage sale that need to be scrubbed individually with steel wool to get rust off, it sits on the porch until I get to it. My grain bins for my wheat and spelt are perfect for getting stuff off the ground and put in front of the windows.
 

After things have been canned, they sit here on the kitchen floor until someone gets in trouble for something and is forced to take them downstairs as punishment. Under the jars, there, is my box of canning supplies--rings, lids, books, mixes, tools, etc.
 

When things finally get taken downstairs, they are basically left at the bottom of the stairs until I get down there to organize them.

Here is one of my shelves. It holds mainly my full jars.

I have several other shelving units. This one is for my empty jars and other stuff.

 
An another set of shelves for other storage.

And that's the ugly, messy truth. It will be organized and cleaned up soon as canning season is over. Probably.