Strawberry jam

[Stonehead]

We've just made...



Ten one-pound jars of strawberry jam from freshly picked fruit. Yum!

Details over on the blog - apologies for not redoing it here, but I'm supposed to be cooking dinner now!

[Thomzo]

oh yum yum can I have some?

Do you do mail order?

Zoe

[Stonehead]

oh yum yum can I have some?

Do you do mail order?

Zoe

I'm afraid not!

Here's the first of today's batches - rhubarb and raspberry, another 10 1lb jars.



With the strawberry jam, that's enough for 40 weeks. But I still have rhubarb and ginger jam, and very berry jam to do. The surplus ones are given to friends or swapped for things we need.

We have a lot of rhubarb this year. One plant was enough for all the rhubarb jams and the rhubarb chutney, while we still have another three cultivated plants to go plus a couple of wild ones.

And there are still sufficient berries left on the bushes to get a few fresh berry desserts under our belts as well.

[the.fee.fairy]

oooh...they look good!

[Stonehead]

oooh...they look good!

Taste good too. I've just had a couple of home-made pancakes with the strawberry jam. Slurp!

[Milims]

We made jam today too!! Only we did it in the bread maker!! lol It works out quite well if you don't have a huge amount of fruit all in one go - you can make a jar at a time. Ok so it isn't quite as eco-friendly as one huge batch but you do end up with fresh jam whenever you want it! Last weeks jam has gone already - and we'll be out foraging for stuff for next weeks soon!!
Stoney - what's in your very berry jam?

[Stonehead]

Still working...



Rhubarb and ginger jam (there's a recipe for this one on the blog).



Rhubarb chutney - recipe from Mary Norwak's Farmhouse Kitchen.

[Stonehead]

Stoney - what's in your very berry jam?

Last year's recipe can be found on the blog, but it will be slightly different this year as we have a different combination of berries.

At the moment, this year's berries will probably be raspberries, blackberries, blackcurrants and strawberries. We may throw in a few tayberries and gooseberries as well, but most of these are still a few weeks off ripening.

The foundation berries for very berry jam are raspberries and blackberries, preferably wild ones as you need the really intense flavour to work alongside the spices. The other berries are there to add more depth and subtlety to the flavour so can be in relatively small amounts.

The reason for the cup measurement is simple - it's much easier to give the boys and the OH similar sized large cups and tell them to pick nine cups full of berries (in total). Then I just match the amount of sugar and juice by using the same size cup for measuring them.

They've had a lot of fun yesterday and today picking strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and rhubarb. The blackcurrants, tayberries and gooseberries will be tomorrow, while we're still waiting for the blueberries as well.

[Millymollymandy]

How many strawberry plants do you have Stoney? I was thinking about making strawberry jam myself but I don't think I was able to pick more than about 1/2 kilo at a time (every couple of days) and that's from about 35 plants.

If I left the stawbs on the plants for more than a couple of days when ripe they went rotten or the slugs got them. Not used to all this rain!

I shall check out your very berry jam recipe as I'm thinking of doing a mixed berry one in the autumn (blackberries, elderberries and frozen homegrown redcurrants).

[Stonehead]

How many strawberry plants do you have Stoney?

I haven't the foggiest any more! We started with 12 three years ago, and have been planting out the suckers ever since. There are enough for us to get about 2kg in the main picking, with about half a kilo over the week before and another kilo or so in week or two following.

The real problem is having enough of the soft fruit ripe around the same time. This year we have strawberries, raspberries (including wild ones), blackberries (wild) and blackcurrants all ripe at the same time, which makes things easier.

The gooseberries and most of the tayberries are about a fortnight behind at the moment, while the blueberries are still some way off.

Last year, the strawberries were well ahead of everything else while the gooseberries were more in line with the raspberries, blackberries and blackcurrants.

What I'd really like to make is elderflower and gooseberry jam, but with the elderflower in blossom now I think I'll have to skip that this year and use the elderflower for other things.

[Cassiepod]

Ooooh I have a load of goose berries in the freezer from a bumper harvest last year (They've got no fruit this year) Do you ahve the recipe for elderflower and gooseberry handy? I might give it a try at the weekend with the kids

[pikilily]

Stonehead wrote ; What I'd really like to make is elderflower and gooseberry jam, but with the elderflower in blossom now I think I'll have to skip that this year and use the elderflower for other things.[quote

why not pick the elderflowers now and freeze them for later use...i do this so i can make fresh elderflower cordial during the winter.
dont wash them just freeze as picked!

[Millie]

How did you manage to get blackberries now?! The ones round my way are either still flowering, or are small and green

[Millymollymandy]

I was wondering that too!

[Stonehead]

How did you manage to get blackberries now?! The ones round my way are either still flowering, or are small and green

They're wild ones. We managed to get just over half a kilo picking four different spots. The best spot is actually in the village where there's a huge vine against a south-facing wall on a bit of council owned land. I noticed them last year when there was a huge crop that all the locals ignored - the Wee Un and I used to pick them when doing the playgroup run (just after the summer holidays up here).

Despite the weather (or because of it), the blackberries are ripening now, about a fortnight earlier than they started last year, but there are still many more unripe ones to be collected over the coming month or so.

The wild raspberries are very mixed this year. The thickets of canes around our water tank are barely in flower, the canes along our eatern boundary have mostly small, green berries, and the thicket opposite the farm down the road also has small, green berries. But there's another thicket in a sunny spot beside one of the roads near us that was absolutly loaded with ripe berries. They're the small, intensely flavoured ones so mixing them with our cultivated crop makes for an excellent result however we use them.

It's one of the advantages of walking and cycling a lot, as well as being observant. I also know a good spot for cherries, two good spots for wild garlic, several good clumps of rowan, a really good place for apple scrumping (old overgrown trees that still produce a good crop and are on public land), about a dozen places for wild rhubarb (not that we need any this year) and scores of places for elderflower.

Different spots have different micro-climates, so it's just a matter of knowing which ones are likely to be ready at which time and then checking them at least once a week.