Farm to Jar

Stephanie and I woke up early on Saturday morning to drive out to Capay Valley for Farm Fresh To You‘s spring farm tour and strawberry picking. I went by myself last year, my first tour of the farm, and had an absolute ball. Nothing compares to eating warm strawberries right off the stem. This year I had a mission: pick as many strawberries as I could, and use them to make homemade jam, something I’ve never done.

Farm Fresh To You's 2009 spring farm tour and strawberry picking
We were not alone
Stephanie and Justin showing off their strawberries
Showing off our strawberries
Our strawberries
We each picked about 4-5 green containers worth

Last night I read up on how to make jam, and then this morning I went out to Rainbow Grocery to pick up 12 one pint canning jars, canning tongs, a canning funnel, sugar, and pectin, the fruit-based gelling agent. We then set to work stemming and washing the strawberries, mashing them, cooking them, and finally canning them. All told we made seven pints, three with very mashed strawberries, and four with less mashed strawberries, plus lemon juice and vanilla sugar.

Kerr canning pint jars
Our new Kerr canning jars
Stephanie stemming strawberries for jam
Stephanie stemming strawberries
Mashed strawberries for jam
Five cups of mashed strawberries
Adding sugar and pectin to the boiling mashed strawberries
Adding sugar and pectin to the boiling mashed strawberries
Funneling the jam into the jars
Funneling the jam into the jars
Boiling the jam in the jars
Boiling our first batch of jam in the jars
Homemade strawberry jam
The finished product: beautiful homemade strawberry jam

4 Comments

jung people doing nice and usefull things ;-))). homemade jam is a good start for every day…
a tip from me to you : scrab the lid with schnaps ( ore popskull ;-)) ..bye the way – my dictionary-programm knows nice words and translations ;-)) – ok – the alcohol makes ist long-lasting and stops the jam to get mouldy.
Popskull ist realy a funny word …ha.. i’ll never vorget that !!

You two certainly know how to inspire envy. I am determined to do meyer lemon marmalade this year. If I get it together, would you be up for a minor trade?

Whoa, jam-trading! ‘Tis a brave new world I’ve entered. Sure—but no pressure. We’d be happy to just gift you some. Granted, I haven’t tried it out of the jar just yet, so I can’t vouch for its quality.

I will pick the lemons today and marmalade them tomorrow! Sweet! (ha– literally)

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