See Angela's blog Tracing Rainbows for the other Thrifty Thursday posts:
http://angalmond.blogspot.com/

This is harvest season when we gather in the remains of everything we worked hard to grow over the summer.  It is also a busy season storing as much as we can for the winter.  Freezers help but cost lots to run.  I like to save the freezer space for things that I can't preserve in other ways, such as meat and veg rather than fruit.

Apples and tomatoes can both be bottled without the use of expensive Kilner jars and those replacement rubber rings or metal lids.  Jam jars with good lids will work just fine. 

Tomatoes:

There is a lovely post on bottling tomato sauce (in jam jars) at Our new Life in the country blog.  It is the post for 5 September 2011 and is entitled Preserving the Gluts.  When I get my hands on enough tomatoes, you know what I'll be doing with them : )

http://ournewlifeinthecountry.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-09T08%3A29%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=7

Apples (again!):

There are several posts that I have read with interest over the last few years.  It was a reference in a post by Frugal Queen that started me off and I find that lots of people bottle apple for the winter in jam jars.  With the addition of sugar and lemon juice, apples keep well when preserved by this method.  Other fruits need the more expensive route of proper Kilner jars etc.

Rhonda Jean: 
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2009/02/biggest-kitchen-table-preservingcanning.html

Cottage Smallholder:
http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/two-easy-apple-sauce-recipes-7064

A really good reference guide can be found on the allotment.org.uk website:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/bottling-canning/index.php

I used this site as a guide for the times for the water bath to process the jars of apple.  This year I would like to try using the pressure cooker as a way of cutting down on my use of gas.

This is my fourth post on using apples.  Anybody would think that we liked apples in this house : )

Edit: the font sizes seem to be jumping around a bit today.  What is published looks different every time and is different to how it looks on the draft version which I typed up.  Sorry!