I have the equipment, and the books, but have never actually done it.  My grandmother used to put up dozens of jars every year, mostly of jams and jellies, and some pickled items.  I don't care for pickled food, and you can only eat so much jam.  So, does anyone have any advice for just canning tomatoes and other veggies?

We do salsa,2 kinds of relish ,pickles and want to try more . My daughter does most of the canning . I help cut etc. I grow all of the stuff. I also make jam . What I do is cook the fruit ,small amount of sugar and fruit fresh to prevent browning in a crock pot reducing it to a jam consistancy and then freezing it in small containers. Just find a good recipe and be sure to use red tomatoes . Yellow tomatoes do not have enough acid for canning. I am going to try tomato sauce out of other color tomatoes but will freeze it. I dry and freeze a lot of my stuff. Freezing veggies is real easy just blanch  in boiling water and cool in ice water then drain and freeze. I spread vegs out on a cookie sheet freeze then package.

Sure canning is fun! (but you MUST take care - follow the directions in your recipes and be very clean). Each year I put up over 70 pints of green beans, 50 pints of tomato sauce, maybe 30 pints of salsa and lots of other stuff depending on what the garden is producing and what I feel like. The last couple years I've been canning roasted marinted peppers, a nice treat on salads in the middle of winter.  I'm not terribly fond of pickled cucumbers myself but these peppers are very good as are Dilly Beans (pickled green beans).

Tomato products are the easiest to start out with, as you don't need a pressure canner.  You have a book - I like the Ball Blue Book myself, and Putting Food By is another excellent book - so dig out your canning equipment and a salsa recipe and go for it. 

Pressure canning is a little trickier since you have to keep your pressure exactly right, which means watching every minute. Too low - botulism risk, too high - the liquid boils out of the jars.  However all it takes is some attention to detail. I do a lot of green beans because we like them and they grow well here. I don't like canning corn - maybe it's the variety I grow or something but it always seems to come out brown, which I think is the sugar carmelizing.  Anything with meat or with a lot of low-acid vegetables means pressure canning.

It's good fun. Go for it!

We cook like Italians, and I need at least 30 qts a year. Then I have read that tomatoes are really great for your health, to boot. So this year, I plan to puree at least 20 quart more. Do like cyndi says. Or just like any book tells you. As a general purpose salsa, and to put on cowpeas that I freeze a bunch of, I make chili sauce. Lots of recipes; all work. But you have to stir it constantly as it boils down to keep it from sticking to the pan and burning.

I also can about a dozen to 16 pints of green beans, as they are the only two (with tomatoes) that can better than feeezing. I don't know about good fun, but my mother taught me how. She said a boy would not make a good husband unless he could cook, sew, and can.

I have the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, very informative.  I am going to start with the easier stuff, and if I do well, maybe move on to harder things later.  I found a really neat recipe for making tomato paste - here.  Depending on how well the tomatoes do in the garden, might do some paste and some canned.  Thanks for the advice!

I freeze lots of surplus when it's ripe and then cook later when the weather cools down and heating up the house in a cooking frenzy is actually desirable.

I have done a lot of canning and freezing over the years. I stopped for a while and now I am back growing a garden and canning. I do not pressure can so I am canning tomatoes, chili sauce, pickles,dill and bread and butter, apples,  jams and freezing squash for winter soups. If the tomato is low in acid you can add lemon juice. In fact I think the new Ball Book recommends adding lemon juice to all tomatoes you are canning. I pickled okra last year and may do some this year. The okra is just starting to come in.

I know this is from last year but decided to add to it as well.  Last year I had an over abudance of zuchinni and squash and we turned it into jam. Can't tell that it is squash or zuchini. We also made corncob jelly (as good as honey), mint jam, raspberry/mango jam and pretty much jammed everything we could find that was different. I stumbled around online until I found something that sounded good and off we went with it. lol

I made a lot of jam this past summer and I froze a lot of berries so I'm planning to make more this weekend. We don't really do Christmas gifts in my family except for the kids but I still like to bring a little something for the rest of my family so I'm going to bring jam for everyone this year.