We picked, hulled and halved over a gallon of strawberries last night - I'll be making jam today. :-)

My tubing trip tomorrow was canceled due to high water and I'm debating whether to use the day to go pick raspberries. I closed on a house today so I have plenty of other projects I could be doing! But I will probably just do two jams and freeze lots of blackberries and raspberries, so I think I might go for it. This was the best weekend for berries last year - I went twice and at the end of June nothing was quite as good.

Melissa

Natural Summer Strawberry Jam
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No commercial pectin jam. I added Balsamic and pepper 'cause I love those flavors with strawberries and raspberries. :-)

I posted 9 jelly jars of Lemon Verbena jelly on another thread.

Ten 1/2 pint jars of Rosemary Orange Jelly and eleven 1/2 pint jars of Dark Cherry Vanilla Jam. I harvested my rosemary but everything else was from BJ's (volume store like Sam's Club).

Nancy

Ladies I am here to tell you that this group is just amazing. I used to read all the threads and think what fabulous things you all do ...and this thread is proof. I once posted on another web site something to the effect...

If you want to feel like the most inadequate female...just read this thread....and it was one of the what have you put up threads...

I made strawberry pie filling. After a million other noncanning things. Had a meeting at the ext. office, stopped to buy strawberries, shopped for shoes and groceries. Came home and thawed some pork, ground up and made Vietnamese sandwiches whith diakon/carrot pickled relish. Did dishes, etc.
Hope I can sit a little tomorrow, but I won't count on it.
Glad it will be bedtime in a few hours.

Ruthie, I have to say you "ain't no slouch" yourself, woman!

Wow! Everything sounds delicious esp lemon verbena jelly, yummy! I'm hoping to try to "fix" my over salty pickles lol! This group is so inspiring !!! Just hopped over from Florida Gardening forum, glad I came by !!

Thursday after work I bought 2 flats of strawberries (8 qts/flat @ $23.00 ea flat), cleaned, hulled, sorted, sliced and dried 5 trays (18"x18" ea tray), froze two bags 2 cups ea, crushed 12 cups for low sugar jam to be made Friday after work, made shortcake, dinner (spaghetti with the first garlic scapes of the season), and enjoyed 2 bowls of strawberry shortcake with milk. Friday after work my daughter and I made the jam...I should say my daughter made her first strawberry jam with me trying not to stand over her shoulder to make sure she was stirring properly. Oh yeah and I had another 2 bowls of strawberry short cake with milk. For those who are thinking what a pig I am, the bowls are small dessert bowls not soup bowls. Saturday I am gardening, planting shrubs, hostas, wintersown seedlings. And later when my DH gets home from a work yard sale for MDA, we'll go to the herb garden and get it ready for the Master Gardeners Garden tour Tuesday. Need to get the hamburgers out of the freezer for dinner. Then I think I'll crash on my new deck with a bottle wine and a wonderful over worked DH.

Well I've gotten a reprieve...due to late frosts and wet weather, it will be two more weeks before my berry farm has pie cherries and blackberries. Just raspberries and blueberries so far. Now I just need to motivate myself to do my other projects so I can clear a weekend later for berries.

Melissa

I just made Ferber's Strawberry with Raspberry Juice and Balsamic Vinegar - what a monumental PITA for 3 jars of too-sweet jam. Bah. I won't bother with that again; I'll just stick with basic strawberry (I like the bit of raspberry flavor) jam with balsamic/pepper added. My whole family loves that.

We ran out of jam yesterday and my wife suggested that we make some more. I told her that my strawberries are about ready for picking, but she picked up some farm stand apricots anyway. When she came home she found that I had picked about 4 quarts of fresh strawberries. We spent part of the day canning 16 pints of jam.

I need to find a low sugar recipe for jam. You guys seem to think nothing of making no/low sugar jam so it must be do-able. We bought 30 pounds of cane sugar yesterday just to be sure we had enough for canning!

I wonder what you other jam makers prefer for making jam; cane sugar or beet sugar? I've heard that cane sugar was sweeter so I might make the next batch with beet sugar just to see how it turns out.

Picking boysenberries all week long - still coming, another pint today. Finally got around to feeding 4 garbage cans of weedings to the shredder and spread around trees today. We have water shortage coming so had to hurry.

Brining a brisket. Tried saving lard as the meat was so fatty, made pie crust for the first time with lard and - with apples from my very own little dwarf tree. Not too bad.

Lots of apricots - many birds feasting - so freezing sauce.

Saved up enough fresh picked green beans and have them brining in the pantry with lots of garlic and hot pepper dried from last year.

Gotta pick oranges and juice them - falling off the trees.

Guess that's all for today. Made sour dough bread yesterday.

Fun -

Bejay