As mentioned yesterday…. it was time to make jam
While my garden wasn’t doing well in the strawberry department, the same can’t be said for the farms around here. On Friday, Dave and I stopped at our favourite farm store on the way into Sarnia. And I completely lost my mind, forgot how many quarts I need to make two batches of jam…. so for some reason decided two flats should do it. (I would like to note that I’ve been making jam on my own for at least 10 years now… I should know this).
Saturday morning, while all the jars were going through a cycle in the diswasher, I started prepping berries. And I quickly realized….I bought WAY too many berries. I had enough for FOUR batches. I was planning on making at least one batch for gifting at Christmas, but…I definitely did not need four full batches of strawberry jam.
While making the first batch, I was also messaging mom. She suggested getting some rhubarb and making a batch of strawberry-rhubarb – that would give me another variety to add to my Christmas gift baskets. She’s a smart lady, so once the first batch was in its jars, Dave and I hopped in the jeep and headed back to the farm store.
There, I bought entirely too much rhubarb (because I had no idea how much I’d need of that either!). I still had some raspberries in the freezer from last fall – it wasn’t quite enough for jam, but when I saw they had some pints of raspberries, I grabbed a couple of those too. And some aspargus for good measure (not for jam – but it went lovely with some steaks we had to bbq)
When I got home, I set to work making the strawberry-rhubarb batch.
Fun fact: I hate rhubarb. And don’t think you can sneak it in on me – I know it’s there!!! That said, it was neat to see how quickly it cooked down and became jam.
Afte that, I tackled the raspberry batch.
While strawberry jam is my favourite to eat, raspberry is my favourite to make. The smell of those raspberries just explodes and fills the kitchen as soon as they start to get warm. Nothing makes the kitchen smell better.
Once the raspberry was done, there was still more strawberries to use up. So two more batches followed.
There were jars EVERYwhere!
But the end result was three batches of strawberry (24x125ml jars and 12×250 ml jars) a batch of raspberry (13×125 ml jars) and a batch of strawberry-rhubarb (11×125 ml jars) and five 250ml jars to take to Mom (one strawberry, two strawberry-rhubarb, and two raspberry).
The smaller jars will be put into gift baskets for Dave to give away at Christmas to friends and service providers.
And as soon as my blackberries ripen… I’ll be making up another batch or two!
Wandering Cat Studio 
YUM!! I don’t love making jam (way too hot), but I sure do love home made jam.
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Val,
Thats a lot of jam. People will just love it. You are very motivated as a gardener and crafter. Troy broke several ribs one month ago in a cycling accident. He’ s still in a lot of pain, especially at night. So he naps much of the day. This has put a damper on summer for sure. He will have a CT scan on Wednesday to determine exactly how many ribs are fractured.
Hence we hired a guy we know to cut the lawn for us. He’s a great guy.
I simply can’t weed. My right medial meniscus is sore when I kneel. Iim not supposed to over do it.
So the flower beds, are full of flowers and weeds. I think of them as food for the pollinators. It isnt at all what we wanted it to look like, but life outdoors hasn’t been a priority. I have four small buckets of snapdragons, with green beans growing in them. I can keep up with watering those four . I also gave away almost all my house plants to the garden library swap. Im having two very small moss terrariums delivered . Growth to see and not work at. Cork tops the cats get into.
Im knitting and blocking and that is soothing for me.
Keep up your green thumb and kitchen work Kathy b
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So industrious!
And so tasty, I’m sure.
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Oh, my gosh!!! What a load of jam. If fruit wasn’t so expensive here I’d make some too. I love homemade jam. Daughter told me yesterday that she just spent $500 at the grocery store that morning. Her kids are primarily fresh fruit and veggie eaters because of food allergies and it’s costing her a fortune and they are only 4 and 1. How on earth does anyone feed teenagers these days?
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What a productive day you had. The jam looks delicious and will be such wonderful gifts. Strawberry season has been over for a few weeks where I live but the strawberries this year were so sweet and delicious.
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That is a LOT of work! I can imagine the smell of all those berries becoming jam!
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So much jam! Well done. I love making jam.
My blueberries produced a lot of fruit this year. I’ve been baking, baking, baking. And freezing a lot of berries, too. I don’t have a huge freezer, so some of those will turn into blueberry lime jam. I haven’t made it before; I hope we like it!
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