Michelle Wittie: Food Preservation for the Home Gardener

Sep 24, 2024 | Classes and Workshops, Experiences, Garden2Table, Recipes

Pineapple Prickly Pear jam

On Sept. 23 I attended our Gardening with the Masters class on Food Preservation with Madeline Gurney, County Program Director.

I’ve been pressure canning for a long time and even I learned new stuff in the class tonight! I also learned that a new Master Preserving Program will be starting soon. Applications should be opening up in the next week. They’ll talk about ALL preserving methods, you’ll get lots of practice with different equipment and some free educational books and materials will come with the classes.

I’ll definitely be taking the course — MASTER Preserver I’ll be 😁😁 can’t wait!!! Anyone else interested in taking it with me?
Pictured are jars of my pineapple prickly pear jam (not for sale just yet). Isn’t it pretty 🤗

About Michelle Wittie

Michelle Wittie, SEMG 2020, has lived in NM since she was 7. Her Abuelita grew chile in Lemitar, NM. Michelle was a self-taught gardener for more than 20 years before becoming a Master Gardener in 2020. She has more than 500 houseplants with one of her special interests being tradescantia.   She loves growing farm herbs and a large tomato garden, and is equally passionate about rescuing honey bees and box turtles. “Food Should be Free” is her mission.

Michelle is also the founder and moderator of Gardening in Rio Rancho, a community gardening collaboration group with 5000+ members on Facebook (not officially affiliated with SEMG).

Michelle presents several free classes, yearly, offered at the local libraries in Sandoval County through “Gardening with the Masters” – please come check them out.