About canning potatoes ...
I just wouldn't waste my canning jars on potatoes. You dig your potatoes up in the fall and they will last about 3 months. Then, around here, potatoes are cheap in the winter. I can buy them for like 3 bucks for 20 pounds. Since they are so cheap, I don't even waste garden space on them.
Now, as far as storing your garden potatoes. Just put them in cardboard boxes or in baskets. You want to keep them dry and cool while in storage. I mean, don't put them in deep boxes, but just like 5 deep or so. Then just check them when you grab some for a meal. If any are soft, then take them out and throw them on the compost pile. The old timers used to keep potatoes all fall and winter. But you have to check 'em and keep them dry and cool.
Then, Kelly, you said that you planted a lot of peppers. I love peppers, too, and plant a lot of them. Now, to store them, I just clean them and slice them and put them in freezer bags for the freezer. I have always been happy with the results. Peppers seem to freeze well. Of course, you can't use them in salads or anything like that after frozen. But I use my peppers all fall and winter in chill and all kinds of soups and stews. A gallon freezer bag of peppers lasts me a long time. But I just eat raw peppers in season, during the summer.
One way I have dried the hot little red peppers? In the fall I just take the bush up by the roots and hang the whole bush up some place on a nail with the little red peppers still on it. And the little peppers will just dry on the bush. The big green peppers are too big to dry whole. But you can clean and slice these and thread them with a needle and thread and hang them up to dry.
And don't be discouraged if one of the peppers you hung up rots. Just pull it off and throw it away. I have a lot of stuff that rots and I have to dump it. But you are learning to be a housewife. Be patient with yourself and see what works best for you. And, heck, if ya wanna can potatoes, then Go for it ... more power to ya. But, to me, I would just save my jars for canning tomatoes.
I use more tomatoes than any other vegetable in our house. We love them and dump them in a lot of stuff, even macaroni and cheese. And if your family really loves peppers with tomatoes, then put a lot of the peppers in your tomatoes and they will all can up just fine. I put basil in my tomatoes, too, and sometimes onions.
Right now, I have a bucket of horseradish outside my back door to make relish with today. Papa dug it up to get it out of my garden space. But it will all grow back. I just take the roots and clean them like you would a carrot. Then I put it all in my blender in chunks and put white vinegar over it, and salt, and chop it all up, and put it in a jar and seal it. I will just make 2 quart jars. Just take the jars and put them in a pan of water with the canning lids and let them come to a boil. Then, after your relish is done, just put it quickly in the jar while it is very hot. Then the lid will seal on the jar, or it should. But the vinegar will keep it preserved.
I have tasted horseradish in a lot of mustards lately from the store. Or if we have gone out to eat, I have tasted it in coleslaw and potato salad and other salads. I think it must be a popular flavor lately. I like mine on sandwiches. But if can get away with it this summer, I will sneak it in some potato salad. Papa don't like me messin' with his potato salad. So I will have to carry a gun in my apron pocket on the day I put horseradish in Papa's potato salad ... Just kidding!! But Papa may actually like it and then he will shower me with kisses.
Also, my Jim loves my bread and butter pickles. So I will save my canning jars for them, too. Then we will buy some fresh corn and I will freeze some of that.
