My tomatoes, after I thought they were done weeks ago, just threw out another flush of blossoms. As I’m in Chicago, those fruit are probably not going to get mature before frost comes. What am I supposed to do with that? Should I pinch them, so as not to drain resources from the existing fruit? Or should I let them go and see what happens?

You’ll need to answer that question first before you or I can say if the sauce is still good after a year. If everything was indeed done safely, well, all of the books, etc say you should eat within a year, but they will also tell you that they personally eat their high acid stuff if it is a bit older.

Of course, you should always carefully inspect all jars for signs of spoilage, too.

I wonder no longer. Obviously, they just deliver them direct to Gayla.

That sort of separation tends to happen with cold-packing. It’s a nice and easy beginner’s method, but the separation does tend to frighten people a little. Check the seal by removing the outer ring and holding the jar with your fingers around the edge of the lid. If you can hold the jar by the lid, the seal is good and so are the contents.

Sometimes with cold-packing some liquid can hiss out when you remove the jars from the canner. This is usually because the jars were removed before they’d had some time to settled (about 5 minutes).

If that happened you should also wipe the sides of the jar clean with a damp cloth. This is important for keeping things safe now, but also means you can check later to see if anything has leaked and know with certainty that there was nothing there before.

Quick question. I followed your technique exactly, as well as referred to a current book I have on canning. After boiling the sealed jars and letting them cool on a rack, all of the tomatoes have risen to the top of the jars and there’s a good inch or so of clear-ish liquid on the bottom. The seals are good, so is this ok? I’m assuming everything will settle down, I just wanted to check.

Thanks again!