Q and A: canning spaghetti sauce, canning potatoes, and cucumber beetles

Canning spaghetti sauce

Why is it okay to water bath can salsa but not spaghetti sauce?

Katie Gilbert
Milo, Iowa

You can certainly can spaghetti sauce without meat in a boiling water bath canner but many experts are now advising us to use a pressure canner for both that and even tomatoes. I think because of the possibility of recipes not containing lemon juice or vinegar and having low-acid tomatoes added to the recipe. — Jackie

Canning potatoes

I have been canning for years and have had very little trouble with loss. But this year I have had 7 jars of potatoes come open not good (have you ever smelled that? Omgosh!) My question is with following the same method for years. I wash new potatoes peel and blanch then place in hot jars, pour boiling water over, place new lids and pressure for 40 minutes. Help please, I am about to give up.

Jo Collins
Morehead, Kentucky

NEVER GIVE UP! It’s my motto. Yep, I have smelled bad potatoes and sweet corn. Yuck! But, hey, it can happen. You may have just gotten a bad batch of lids or perhaps you did like I did on that bad batch of my sweet corn. I was in a huge hurry and left the last batch in the canner to cool as I’d been up for three days and two nights with no sleep. Well, in the morning, I opened the canner and they seemed to have sealed. I washed them and put them in the basement. A couple of weeks later … Peeewww! Something smelled pretty rotten. Yep, it was the corn and I ended up throwing away nine quarts and fourteen pints. That’s a record for me. I doubt that I’ve thrown out that many jars in more than fifty years of canning! (And that includes ones the cat pushed off the shelf to break on the floor.) You did everything right so I’d just gird your loins and get busy and put up more potatoes this year. — Jackie

Cucumber and potato beetles

For the first time ever my squash, cucumber, and pumpkin blossoms are overrun with cucumber and/or potato beetles. I am looking for a non-chemical answer to getting rid of them. I went out with a bucket of soapy water and picked by hand as many as I could but of course several flew away in the process. I read to paint cardboard squares yellow, apply Vaseline, and mount next to plants to draw them to the cardboard where they get stuck. I’m going to give that a shot. Is there anything I can spray directly on the blossoms to make them unattractive to the beetles but not the pollinators? I have these beetles by the dozens this year would appreciate any guidance in handling this infestation.

Teresa Liechti
Milbank, South Dakota

Hand picking works wonders if you keep at it. Will and I worked over our potatoes last year twice a day, hand picking both blister beetles and potato bugs. This year we don’t have any — hooray! You can spray your vines and blossoms with Bt, which is a natural spray that only kills bugs that eat your crops, not those that pollinate it. But even if you spray I would still keep picking as it usually takes a couple of days before the beetles quit eating and begin to sicken. One common, easily found brand is DiPel, often sold at big box stores. — Jackie