By Beccy Tanner
Four years ago, Glora Batten started her journey into canning.
A friend asked her to come over to their house and help can pickles.
“We got started and made a batch of pickles and I just thought it was very fun,” the 29-year-old St. John woman said.
That moment started her thinking about the possibilities of canning more foods.
Soon, she had created an array of jams and jellies, pickles, relishes, and syrups.
Currently, Batten says she is in a canning hiatus.
Her youngest daughter, Charlotte, was born last June and is taking much of Batten’s daily attention.
But she is hopeful to get back into the full canning swing later this spring where she can offer sometimes as many as 30 different varieties of items.
When she does, Batten said she plans on using the new commercial kitchen in the Stafford County Annex.
“I have filled up my dining room table laying down jars and canning equipment,” she said. “I always go through a deep cleaning before I make anything, so it will be nice to walk into a nice, clean kitchen (at the Stafford County Annex) and just simply get the process going.”
Her business is called Preserved Goodness and she sells all over Central Kansas – Salina, Hutchinson, Wichita and Great Bend — and on Facebook.
“I’ve done a lot of pop-up markets over the last couple of years,” she said. “And I’ve been invited to sell products in a couple of stores and in different small businesses … I’ve always enjoyed cooking. I have a good friend. Her name is Phyllis, and she runs Dilly and Doc (a creative studio in Great Bend). She kept telling me I should have a booth with my jams and jellies.
“I didn’t think I had the audacity to do such a thing. I kept telling her so. And then, I went down in my basement after a day of canning, and I realized that I had filled up an entire room with probably 400 to 500 jars of jelly.”
Batten and her husband, Shawn, have four girls – Talley, 10; Rebekah, 4; Savannah, 3; and Charlotte, 7 months.
“My oldest daughter likes to do lemonade stands at the farmers markets,” Batten said. “This summer, I am hoping to go with her and have a few jellies to sell. And then, we will start back up doing random pop-up markets this fall.”
Until then, Batten said she can take small orders with advance notice.
She makes pepper jams, sandhill plum jelly, mulberry and blackberry jams. She has traditional flavors of jams and then, some not so traditional – think chocolate strawberry, blueberry-strawberry, carrot cake, monkey butters and tropical jams.
She sells half pint jars, typically around $7 each.
“Anything that looks fun, I usually try.”
To check out Glora’s business, see Preserved Goodness Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/preserved_goodness .
