I am contemplating canning some fresh veggies and fruits this year.

Do you have any tips, tricks of the trade or different recipes (like salsa, etc.) that you are willing to share?

you can't go wrong with following anything in a Ball canning book

Here are the two recipes that I use most. Tomatoes are super easy. Peaches take a little more work, but are well worth it.

Peaches


Ingredients

Sugar
Peaches
2 Tablespoons Salt
2 Tablespoons Vinegar

Directions
Combine 3 cups sugar and 5 ½ cups water in a saucepan and boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Combine salt, vinegar, and 1 quart water in a large container.
Place peaches in a wire basket or cheesecloth and plunge into boiling water just long enough to loosen skins. Cut into halves and remove the pit, then peel.
Drop into vinegar mixture to prevent darkening until all the peaches are ready for canning. Do not leave peaches in vinegar mixture for longer than 20 minutes. Drain.
Cook several peaches at a time in the boiling syrup until heated through. Then pack in hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Cover the peaches with boiling syrup and adjust the caps and rings.
Process pints for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes in a water
bath canner.
Remove jars from water batch and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight). You can then remove the rings if you like. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Once cooled, they're ready to store.

Tomatoes - Open Kettle Method No Water Bath Required

Put 2 of your biggest pots 3/4 full of water on the stove on high. You want the water to come to a boil. While you're waiting on the water to come up to a boil fill one or both sides of your sink with ripe tomatoes. Make sure you plug the drain before you put the tomatoes in. Once the water is boiling, pour it over the tomatoes that are in the sink. Just cover them with water. Leave them in the sink until the water cools enough for you to put your hands in it.
Try not to leave them in there any longer than 30 minutes. If it's been this long and the water is still too hot, just add some cold water. While the tomatoes are in the hot water you will see their skins start to split. That's what you want to happen.

While the tomatoes are sitting, put 1 teaspoon of salt in each quart jar that you are planning to use. From 2 sinkfulls of tomatoes we got 18 quarts. This was about 1 3/4 five gallon buckets of tomatoes.

Once the water has cooled, start peeling the skins off the tomatoes. It will just pull of. If there is no split in the skin, you can poke it with a knife and then it will pull off. Cut the core out of the tomato and cut them into chunks, dropping the chunks into a large pot. After you have a pot full, squish them up with your hands until they are in small chunks, not a puree, but not chopped. Cook on the stove until the mixture comes to a rolling boil. Skim the foam off, turn down the heat slightly and let the mixture come to a
rolling boil again. Skim one last time.

Put the tomatoes into the jars, filling to the top of the jar right below where the ring goes on. Make sure to wipe the edge of the jar clean, place the seal on it, and tighten the ring on it.

Allow jars to cool on the counter. They will seal as they cool.


I hope this helps.

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Brandy, SAHM to Jodi & Andrew

Last year was the first year I started canning and I found this site easy to use and extremely helpful.

How to Can, Freeze, Dry and Preserve Any Fruit or Vegetable at Home

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I've only done tomatoes (either as sauce or crushed) and pickled hot peppers, but I'm hoping to do a little more this year The Ball Blue book, like a pp mentioned, is like the bible of canning! Also, the University of GA has a great website:
National Center for Home Food Preservation | How Do I? Can
If you have questions after all that, there's a forum on gardenweb called "Harvest" that VERY experienced canners post on. They've been really helpful when I have had questions and you can search their forum for old posts as well.
Harvest Forum - GardenWeb
Good luck - canning is so fun and rewarding, imo!

Karen

Where to Find Pick-Your-Own Fruit / Vegetable Farms and cut-your-own Christmas Tree Farms is another great website. You can also search for places near you to pick your own fruits and veggies.

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Brandy, SAHM to Jodi & Andrew

It is a great book and WalMart always carries it next to their canning supplies.

Also check out used bookstores. I picked up a food preserving book from the late 60's, early 70's by Rodale and it is interesting!

And last, but not least, when choosing your fruits and veggies, go for quality!

Thanks AngelKisses for the link to the pick your own fruit. I found a couple I didn't know about. I think we might have to try a couple of then next apple season. It seems most have gone out of business though in our area which is too bad. I discovered a pick your own fruit place 20 years ago and it was so much fun - made my first and only fresh apricot pie because of it -went back the next year and it was gone -including the trees. Everytime I drive by I think of that pie and wish they were still there.

I'm glad you were able to use the site to find some stuff. We went to a you pick blueberry farm this year and the berries were wonderful. We picked 20 pounds over 2 days and I made blueberry jam, blueberry syrup, blueberry muffins and still have a ton of frozen berries to eat through out the year. I love being able to pick my own fruit.

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Brandy, SAHM to Jodi & Andrew

Thanks for the websites and information ladies!!