Last Saturday we headed off to McBrides brier patch to pick blackberries and raspberries. They had just emailed us to tell us that the berries were on. So we were off with visions of raspberry blackberry jam dancing in our heads. It was early in the season but the raspberries were BIG, red and SWEET. Hyrum wasted no time in digging in. He was so happy to be back at the berry patch.
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The blackberries were just barely getting ripe so it was low and slow going trying to find ripe ones. I wasn't as patient as I should have been and got a few less than ripe ones. Hyrum dug into those too and was too used to picking raspberries and kept picking the red ones instead of the black ones. He became fast friends with Cristall and just hung out around her rolling berries down her hat and pulling ripe berries out of my bucket and putting them in hers. Then giving me red blackberries when I protested. Cristall's mother in law came along this time too and Hyrum looked for "grandma" when she went to another place to pick. He's just so social.
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It's a good thing it's so close so we can go there as much as we want. I only got enough berries to make one batch of raspberry black berry jam. As it turned out I was reading the wrong berry quantity and had more than I needed but it was good for my boys to munch on more berries. When I made raspberry blackberry fruit leather last year it was really thick and by thick I mean chuck full of SEEDS. I almost didn't need to dry it for it to be solid. I figured this time I would strain some seeds out. But I wasn't real sure how. I called around but no one was home so I looked online and low and behold my darling mother in law had already provided me with a machine to take out seeds. Derek kept Hyrum busy as I got down to business.
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That's the little contraption on the left. As I worked at clearing the seeds I thought Hyrum would enjoy working the machine..JPG)
And he did! I think I need to try a different pectin next time because it didn't set up as solidly as I'd hoped. But it didn't stop us from going through the first jar in four days. :) Guess it's time to go back to the patch! For the last week or so we'd been pulling pears off our tree. We've been learning a lot about pears and it seems that they are not suppose to ripen on the tree. You are suppose to pull them off when they come off easily at a 90 degree angle. Then you are suppose to put them in the refrigerator for a couple days and then ripen them at room temperature. So as I made my jam this sat waiting for me
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It hopefully will be a while before they are ready to be canned because I have more to learn about how to do that.The next day Sunday we were out admiring our nectarine trees and Derek put his hand on a nectarine and it came off in his hand.
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So he tried it...RIPE, sweet and DELICIOUS! And they are free stone. Which means that the fruit isn't attached to the pit which also means that they will be MUCH easier to can.
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I'd kinda decided that this tree would be our eating tree since it had smaller nectarines on it. But there were also a lot more on this tree than the other one..JPG)
And now they are all getting ripe at once. Time to meet our neighbors! :)Then Thursday I was looking at my tomato plants wondering if there were enough to can some. It was going to be warmer on Saturday ( 96 degrees) so I figured that I would just give it a try. I went out and pulled off all of the ripe tomatoes and had a bucket full.
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So I got to work. Much to Hyrum's dismay who only wanted me to play with him in his room. He pulled on my legs and pushed my legs and ran through my legs..JPG)
He pulled out every kitchen utensil that he could reach and threw tomatoes across the floor. But I turned up the music and tried to distract him and get him to dance. At one point he was really quiet so I turned around to find this..JPG)
He wasn't sleeping. Just getting cozy with his blanket. Apparently the floor was too hard because when I turned back around again he had another blanket as well. But at the end of the day I had this!.JPG)
Only one didn't seal and I made it into spaghetti sauce for Friday dinner. Derek wishes I made it more anyway. Next time I'll have to remember to leave more head space though.So it seems that harvest time is here in full force. And I say "Bring it on!!"
5 comments:
Nikki said...
YEA! Looks so good!
Love that you have so much *free* stuff growing in your yard!!
My tomato plants are doing awful this year. I don't know if it's too much rain, or slugs, or too many weeds, but they are dying fast and only 2 tomatoes are just now starting to turn orange. Cherry tomatoes are doing better, but branches keep dying off of those too. Not a big harvest I'm afraid.
Jackson's preschool project- planting pumpkin seeds- had resulted in 3 pumpkins so far though. Kobe's mystery seeds project has given us 1 stalk of corn with 2 cobs on it. Don't know if they'll grow to maturity, but it's funny to see 1 stalk of corn in the middle of the garden! Green peppers are totally shadowed by the enormous pumpkin plant, so only a couple of peppers so far.
My poor neglected garden. It could use you.
Harrisons said...
I'm so jealous! Good job being so ambitious and getting everything canned. I wish I had half your ambition. And pears are easy to can. They're just messy and sticky, but you can't mess it up!
Annette said...
Cute blog! I love your pics! I've had several of those moments where you see your kids smaller than they are. Its kinda sad how quick they grow!
Kendall and Melissa said...
Wow Sunny! that looks great and very impressive! I'm so glad that you wrote about the pears, because my parents have a pear tree and I want to use them, but last year I could never figure out how to get them to ripen. I will try your advice! Way to be super woman!
Holly said...
:)Oh my gosh. I just read a blog post about tomatoes from Megan Brady. You HAVE to read it! It is sooo funny!! http://perfectsyzygy.blogspot.com/2009/09/youre-sly-one-mister-m.html
The blackberries totally take me to Grandma's farm on 3 mile. I am so glad you are doing that!
Pears take me right to the backyard of Grandma Streeters house. I am soo glad you have a pear tree!
FREE STONE PEACHES in your back yard??? Outstanding!! :) You are soo lucky.
Canning tomatoes already?? I am heading to the Farm Market right now!! (by way of my neighbors garden!!)
Great post!