A friend, a long-time canner, warned me up front to read all the instructions. I had watched a few videos and knew the basics, but the tone of her message prompted me to do more research. Botulism can be an issue with canning, and I wanted to do what I could to avoid it.
Strawberries were growing in abundance during that time, so we went to a local farm and purchased fresh-picked berries. To my surprise, making jam is extremely easy, and pectin isn't always needed to thicken the mix. I used a recipe for a small batch of non-pectin strawberry jam. It looked and smelled wonderful.
The canning process turned out to be a simple process as well. I still botched it and had to refrigerate/freeze the jars immediately and use them within a week, but I learned what not to do.
Blueberries were coming into season, so I tried that next.
During the cooking process, the jam looked too thin, so I continued to cook it. Consequently, after it cooled, the jam was too firm. Very tasty, but almost like candy. I could slice the stuff. I now know that when the candy thermometer hits 220 degrees, stop cooking regardless of how thin the jam looks.
Peaches came in early this year. When we discovered our local fruit stand had South Carolina peaches (absolutely the best) I thought, hey, peach jam. Applying all my lessons learned, I made and canned peach jam using the recipe in the Ball book
Not only did I use fresh peaches, I included all that good juice. It tasted like peach cobbler, and despite already having jars of strawberry and blueberry jam in the refrigerator, we opened a peach and pretty much gobbled it up.
I had hoped to can vegetables, but due to the lack of acidity in veggies, I would need a pressure cooker to can those. For now, I'll stick with fruits. That's fine, because now it's my jam.