15 Signs That You’re a Crazy Canning Lady

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Are you crazy about canning? Have more Ball jars than you could possibly count? Then you’re probably a crazy canning lady. Here’s a quick checklist to help you determine if your canning obsession has gone too far.

rows of home canned food in jars

Like most obsessions, canning starts innocently enough. Maybe you have a bumper crop of strawberries, thanks to these easy strawberry-growing tips.  Then you figure it can’t be too hard to make some strawberry jam.

FYI: strawberry jam is a gateway drug.

jar of strawberry jam and strawberries

Before you know it, you’re canning salsa and making pickles. Talking with your friends about the advantages of Tattler lids and Weck jars.

Then you’re pricing out pressure canners and drawing up plans for a backyard canning kitchen.

Look out! You’ve turned into a crazy canning lady. Here are some tips that will help you check your symptoms.

home canned food in jars on shelf

15 Signs that You’re a Crazy Canning Lady

1. You plan your vegetable garden on what’s best for canning, not what your family likes to eat fresh. Who has room for corn or celery when you could plant more rows of strawberries or green beans?

2. Canning rings hang from bungee cords in your pantry, like bizarre stalactites waiting to bump your head. (Photo from my friend Mel at Faulk Farmstead.)

canning rings hanging from bungee cord

3. Your kids set up canning lids on sticks in the backyard for Nerf gun target practice.

4. You can tell the age of a Ball canning jar by the script on its logo.

5. Jars and rings are washed and organized by size and type in bins, like Theresa’s from Living Homegrown.

canning jars in plastic bins with lids

6. Even though you spent the winter harvesting your lemon tree, juicing the fruit and drying the peel, you still buy bottled lemon juice.

7. You hit every garage sale and estate sale in town, looking for vintage jars to add to your collection.

8. There are more recipes saved to your Pinterest board about canning than you’ll ever be able to make.

9. When you’re pressure canning outside and a rainstorm comes in, you just hold an umbrella over the canner and keep going…like my friend Cheryl from Pasture Deficit Disorder.

woman cooking outside in the rain

10. You can debate for hours on the merits of Tattler reusable canning lids versus traditional Ball/Jarden lids.

11. Same with aqua glass Ball jars versus tulip-shaped Weck jars.

12. You were more excited about the new Ball Home Preserving book than your kids were about Harry Potter.

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

13. Instead of buying a card-matching memory game for your toddler (remember those?), you paste matching photos on old jar lids and make your own game.

14. The thought of spending the entire day cooking down a vat of tomatoes to end up with 4 jars of sauce sounds incredibly appealing.

15. The sound “Ping! Ping! Ping!” is more beautiful to you than the finest symphony.

Are you a crazy canner? Share your symptoms below!

home canned food in jars

Hi, Im Pam!

I created Brown Thumb Mama to share my natural living journey, and help you live a greener life. Thanks for being here!

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12 thoughts on -15 Signs That You’re a Crazy Canning Lady-

  1. Great article! I was a water bath canner most of my adult life until my sister finally convinced me to pressure can this year. And you would have laughed watching me using the canner the first few times. I stayed as far from it as possible at first and got very frustrated having to deal with maintaining pressure pounds because it made me have to get close to
    the stove, but after the results, I became a crazy canner! It gives me a feeling of accomplishment that surpasses that of an athlete making a touchdown. A touchdown is good for the moment; my accomplishment can last years! Thank you for all the information you share. It is so much appreciated. PS: I’m pressure canning applesauce today. So excited!

  2. Avatar photo
    Charlene E Woods

    Let’s just say it’s a good thing I started later in life. I bought my Pressure canner in August last year and in less than 9 months………..I’ve canned over 700 jars of food!!! It is safe to say I am a CRAZY CANNING LADY!!!

  3. I too am a crazy canner it’s gone on for fifty six years I started my first year of marriage my dad encouraged me to plant a garden we raised 5 children on a lot of home canned fruits vegetables stocks meats etc I’m thankful mom and encouraged me and helped me get started my children are all grown and gone now I’m canning with grandchildren and I’m still going strong.

  4. I’m a crazy canner! I store my empty jars on a shelving system in our garage. Well… a family of squirrels moved into the loft in the garage. They are storing nuts in all the jars, bags of lids, and bins of rings!

  5. I am a canning addict. My daughter cringes every time I say we should can some of this or that. I don’t just wait for stuff from the garden. I actively go out and hunt down more produce to can. Been known to stay up until 2am waiting for the last batch to finish and then get up and start again the next day. I have friends and neighbors who hunt canning jars at yard sales for me. Got to go… pears are waiting to be juiced and sauce made.

  6. Well, I guess I’m a crazy canner. I would also suggest that you’re a crazy canner if friends and family are always receiving canned goods as presents from you. Every birthday or holiday package I send out usually has a jar or two of something in it.

    I’d also add that people think I’m a drug dealer because there are so many friends and family who come up and ask me in hushed tones “You got any more of the good stuff? You know that blueberry/currant jam? That stuff was off the hook, I NEED more, I’ll do anything, I’m desperate, c’mon hook me up?”

  7. I have way too many of these symptoms! I put in my first garden last year and canned four PINTS of tomato juice. but bought six big boxes of canning jars and lids at an estate sale last summer and another 100+ at a garage sale a month ago. I’m not a Crazy Canner YET – just give me a few more weeks though!

  8. My name is Darlene, and I’m a Crazy Canner! If my supply of empty canning jars dips below 14 cases, I run out to the store for more!

  9. Avatar photo
    Frieda Morris

    Hello, my name is Frieda and I am a Crazy Canner.(Hello Frieda) (Haha) I try to urge,beg, plead my family members to can foods. I have the “what if” syndrome. What if, you can’t buy food-what if, you need something and can’t get to the grocery. Etc. From the minute that I see seed packets in the stores until I display my finished product, I am enamored with all of it. With each canner , I say “Oh how beautiful that is”. My husband is so proud of everything that I can. He brags to the people that he works with. This makes me a Happy Canner.

  10. Hi, my name is Marlene and I am a crazy canner and like most people it started with strawberry jam and progressed from there. I have even gone so far as to enter my jams in competition at the county fair. And yes I have also given tours of my canning room. I have considered rehab every year around February but then my seed catalogs start arriving and I totally forget. Great article.

  11. I’m PROUD to be included as a crazy canner! Thanks Pam. This post made me laugh at loud. I think I have done all of the above. And here I thought only MY kids did the nerf gun target practice thing…Tee hee.

  12. You know you are a crazy canner when you show off your canned goods area to anyone who wants THAT tour! Guilty as charged!