Preserving Strawberries

We have harvested about 15 lbs of strawberries already this year, and still have many more ripening on the vine. We had been freezing them, but I had off Friday and decided to preserve a few.

Fresh Picked Strawberries

Stemmed and ready to turn into jam

Crush the strawberries

Add 1 Package Pectin

 

Add Sugar (recipe called for 7 cups, but I only put 4 in) and bring to a boil.

Heat up the lids in boiling water. I heated the jars in the dishwasher.

Fill the jars - The counter became a sticky mess.. Oops.

Load the boiling canner

TA DA! Jam!

For the preserves, I used Sugar in the Raw as an experiment. I think it worked OK, but the sugar did take longer to dissolve. This recipe (from the Ball Canning Book) was the "Heritage Preserve) recipe, so no added pectin, but there was a lot of "sitting" time.

About to go in the canner!

So, all said and done, we have 6 half pints of preserves put up and 7 half pints of jam. Not to mention, I'll have another opportunity to can next weekend!

The Hot Air Balloon

There is a hot air balloon that periodically flies by our house. It came by about a week ago.

Hoosick didn't like it too much.

Garden Update

The progression of the gardens:

Jason and I have been working on expanding the vegetable garden and making it seem a little more put together. This is how it looked about a week ago. We are getting fencing delivered tomorrow to put around the stone paths.

Jason is tilling me a new flower garden in front of the vegetable beds! I have the BEST husband!

I went away to Dallas for a few days for work and I got back and wondered why Jason had planted things around my bean pole tee-pee and then I realized the beans had sprouted and grown this much while I was away!

The strawberries are starting to ripen. We've harvested about 2 lbs already this week and there a bunch more that will be ready soon!

    

2 lbs and counting!

Blueberries are going to start to color soon too!

Blackberries are blooming!

Look at the baby raspberries!

What's Blooming?