# How many pint and quart jars for a family of 4.



## longrider (Jun 16, 2005)

Most of my preps and indeed homesteading efforts are for naught if I can not put them up for year round use. Having grown up on a small farm we canned a great deal but I do not remember ever having more than one hundred jars of a mixed variety. But we had access to a Winn Dixie and Piggly Wiggly within 5 miles. As I am moving a bit farther away from town in the near future it begs the question: Just how many pint, quart and half gallon jars should one purchase for a total that one might need in the future as we grow into a full time self sufficient homestead?


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## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

I have around 1500 canning jars and always run low on pints by the end of canning season. However, my goal is to keep enough food canned for a couple years just in case.
Just one person now, but I eat mostly home-grown, either fresh or canned. I also can quite a bit of chicken and deer, too. Even pork if I get a nice quantity in a trade.


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## anniew (Dec 12, 2002)

I think you need to do the arithmetic. No one knows the age of your individual family members, nor how much they eat. If I were figuring it for myself, I'd try to have a half pint each of two or three different fruits, and the same for veggies for each day, plus enough protein like meat, fish, beans, etc. to last until the next garden harvest/animal harvest/hunting harvest. And that's just for one person. It amounts to planning on nine or ten months of food needed before the fresh stuff starts harvesting the next season.
So, for instance say if I want two different fruits for the day. A half pint of fruit #1 and a half pint of fruit #2. That means a pint total for the day...so I'd need about 300 pints of fruit to get me through til the next harvest (assuming 10 months of non-productive time), if the need arose say at the end of the current harvest. Likewise, with veggies. If you want three 1/2 pint servings, then you need 50 percent more or 450 pints each of fruits and 450 of veggies. Having a variety in that 450 number is also important for maximum nutrition and would make meals more interesting.
You have to figure out what you actually feed the family now, and then do the math from there. My calculations are for one person, so with five in your family, it will add up quickly.
However, you don't have to can everything. If you dry some, keep some fresh without preserving, like potatoes, carrots, garlic, winter squash, onions, and perhaps beets, rutabaga, all of which store for several months under the correct conditions, you can use those for the first few months post-harvest, and save the canned stuff for later, thus reducing the need for a portion of the calculated canned supplies. Freezing is also possible, and the only drawback to that might be if you think an end-of-the-world event were to take place and you are without electric or major solar to keep the freezers running.
There are so many variable that each household must make its own assessments/calculations based on a multitude of those variables.
Good luck in figuring this out for your family, and congratulations on wanting to make your homestead as self-sufficient as possible.
Oh, of course, there is also the need to have bountiful supplies of food for the critters you may keep, and fertilizer/lime/ability to control pests to water garden crops.
It's not rocket science, but you do have to push the pencil.


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## mmoetc (Oct 9, 2012)

What anniew said. The same calculations need to be done at the beginning of the season to determine what you grow and how much.


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## hunter63 (Jan 4, 2005)

You are always short jars from the start....add them over the years, ..buy new, yard sales people give them to you.....as your family grows.
So a given number is hard to nail down.....if you have them you will fill them...if not you don't ...and look for more.

Then people in the household tend to leave...and as you get older, eat less, and diet changes.
You end up with boxes of empty jars...So you sell them, or give them away, or end up in your estate....Thus continuing the circle.


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## anniew (Dec 12, 2002)

Ooops.. 50 percent more would be 450 pints...in both cases of fruits and veggies...
haha, not rocket science, I said...I just need a couple more brain cells working...
Made the changes in my earlier post...


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## PlayingInDirt (Aug 2, 2017)

Found this on Facebook, from 1930. My goal for next year.


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## anniew (Dec 12, 2002)

Would love to see that from the Farmers Guide, but it will take half the day to load...give a summary, please.


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## TerriLynn (Oct 10, 2009)

anniew said:


> Would love to see that from the Farmers Guide, but it will take half the day to load...give a summary, please.


According to the Ohio Agricultural Canning Extension Service, a normal canning budget for 5 people for winter and spring months includes 48 quarts of greens, to be served twice a week, 90 quarts of other vegetables to be served 3 times a week, 80 quarts of tomatoes to be served twice a week, and 245 quarts of fruits to be served once a day.


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

one of the great things with canning is foods can last for several years , this year your tomatoes may do great so you can enough to last a few years , next year may be a flood so none . your pig may make it to slaughter or not ,even the deer hunters manage to zero out sometimes ; so my advice is get all you can, and can all you can .i'v even had to sell my beef calf to cover other bills ; but with the freezer n canned it was not a hardship , hoppeing you good luck on the farm


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

look into your local bargan finder sale paper , in my area there are always adds for used jars in the farmers market section often $3 a dozen .I found a pickup load of good clean pint n quart jars from a lady that with age had gave up canning ,along with Ebay where I found lids n rings from some one who used new jars for candles n crafts but not the lids . this holds down cost .


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## PlayingInDirt (Aug 2, 2017)

Also, only thing you can jar in half gallons is fruit juice, which really isn't that nutritious. Half gallons are really handy for canisters/ storage and making fermented pickles. 

I find I gravitate toward certain sizes for certain things. I like the wide mouth pint for pickles, wide mouth quart for stewed tomatoes, and the small mouth quart for tomato sauce. 

I have a bunch of the unusual half pints for jelly, which I bought when I first got into canning, but I like the standard jelly jar the best.

I will never buy the colored ones, I do not get that fad at all. 

And the standard small mouth pint ones are useful for my morning to go coffee. With a classico spaghetti jar lid (didn't can last year, had to buy some), but the 2 piece works good too.


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## TerriLynn (Oct 10, 2009)

PlayingInDirt said:


> Also, only thing you can jar in half gallons is fruit juice, which really isn't that nutritious. Half gallons are really handy for canisters/ storage and making fermented pickles.


I can homemade chicken broth in my 2 quart jars. I can fit 4 of them in my pressure canner. I have also canned a whole turkey leg in a 2 quart jar, no added broth, just the leg. It worked out fine..don't think I would do it that way again..I would rather cook it first, take the meat off the bone and then can it, but only for convenience. It sure is nice to do the work on the front end of the canning process then when you need the contents to just open up a jar and use it.


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## PlayingInDirt (Aug 2, 2017)

I'm just going by National Center for Home Food Preservation guidelines. But some are a little unreasonable so take it with a grain of salt.


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## ladytoysdream (Dec 13, 2008)

When my kids were young, I had roughly 1000 jars. My goal was to fill about 600
for the new year. I also had 2 freezers running, one chest, one upright.


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## longrider (Jun 16, 2005)

Thanks folks, I find the experiences of other to be very valuable.


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## lmrose (Sep 24, 2009)

anniew said:


> I think you need to do the arithmetic. No one knows the age of your individual family members, nor how much they eat. If I were figuring it for myself, I'd try to have a half pint each of two or three different fruits, and the same for veggies for each day, plus enough protein like meat, fish, beans, etc. to last until the next garden harvest/animal harvest/hunting harvest. And that's just for one person. It amounts to planning on nine or ten months of food needed before the fresh stuff starts harvesting the next season.
> So, for instance say if I want two different fruits for the day. A half pint of fruit #1 and a half pint of fruit #2. That means a pint total for the day...so I'd need about 300 pints of fruit to get me through til the next harvest (assuming 10 months of non-productive time), if the need arose say at the end of the current harvest. Likewise, with veggies. If you want three 1/2 pint servings, then you need 50 percent more or 450 pints each of fruits and 450 of veggies. Having a variety in that 450 number is also important for maximum nutrition and would make meals more interesting.
> You have to figure out what you actually feed the family now, and then do the math from there. My calculations are for one person, so with five in your family, it will add up quickly.
> However, you don't have to can everything. If you dry some, keep some fresh without preserving, like potatoes, carrots, garlic, winter squash, onions, and perhaps beets, rutabaga, all of which store for several months under the correct conditions, you can use those for the first few months post-harvest, and save the canned stuff for later, thus reducing the need for a portion of the calculated canned supplies. Freezing is also possible, and the only drawback to that might be if you think an end-of-the-world event were to take place and you are without electric or major solar to keep the freezers running.
> ...



I could never have said it better! Thanks for doing the calculations! When we had six home in the family I canned about 500 qt- or liter jars of various fruits and vegetables. But any thing that would keep in cold storage like potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage, beets , parsnips etc, I didn't can. Now we , which are two; are temporarily in an apartment I have 160 pint or 1/2 liter jars stored in a hall pantry cupboard. All depends on the size of the family and your needs to calculate how much you need canned. have a nice day.


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## tiffanysgallery (Jan 17, 2015)

This table may give an idea where to start concerning veggies;


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