Pickling is one way of preserving garden product for safe eating later in the year.

COVID-19 pandemic-created food shortages this spring got people planting “pandemic gardens.”

Now the literal fruits and vegetables of their labors are ripe, and the question becomes what to do with a bushel of zucchini other than leaving it in the lunchroom for co-workers.

It might be time for first-time gardeners to learn another skill: home canning.

Virginia Mangel of the Butler Pomona Grange said it's hard to find people canning nowadays.

“I noticed that cans are back on the shelf at Walmart,” she said. “But not a lot of people can anymore. It's work.”

This is an excerpt from a story that appears in Sunday's Butler Eagle.