My First Canning FAIL

I was excited to see that my plum tree is full of fruit that is ripe or near ripe. I decided to seize the moment and go ahead and make some plum jam tonight. I was missing a few things, lemon juice, pectin, and a tray for the jars to sit on in the water bath. Bryson and I went to the Super Target to get these things. Turns out Target has a few items for canning, but mostly worthless. Next stop, Wal-Mart. I couldn’t find a canning tray there either. They had a kit that came with a plastic basket, but it would only hold 3 jars and looked like it would last about 4 times. I decided to make my own using a stove burner cover by drilling holes in it. At $4, I wouldn’t be too upset if it didn’t work out.
We got home with just enough light left in the day to get some fruit off the tree. I picked what I thought would be enough and came inside to get started. I drilled a bunch of holes in the burner cover, then decided I needed to sand it a little to remove all of the sharp burrs that were created by the drilling. As Murphy’s law dictates, I cut my finger while doing this.
Moving on, I got the jars set up in the water bath to heat up, lids ready for heating, tools cleaned and ready, and started cleaning my fruit. Guess what? EVERY PIECE OF FRUIT HAS A WORM LIVING IN IT! I little research tells me it is too late to do anything about it, all the fruit is infected. You have to spray very early to take care of this problem. I’m very disappointed to say the least!

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