I picked the first round of strawberries from my front flower bed on May 13th this year, a little early. I was ridiculously proud of myself for predicting an early strawberry harvest this year. The berries at the back are slightly deformed - the deformation is called catfacing and is usually caused by insect damage or lack of pollination. It doesn't affect the taste at all!
Of course, the average 8 berries/day that I'm getting from the garden isn't really enough, so I dragged my son and MIL out to Larriland Farm and we picked a whole bunch. Below is the remainder after I made about 9 1/2 pint jars of jam and served a big bowl full at our celebration for N's graduation. (The color of the jam is just unbelievable - if I saw it in a store I would swear it was artificially colored!) I'm going to slice and freeze most of the rest of the berries.
I'm so jealous! I have completely missed fresh strawberries this year. Sure, I can buy them imported from California, but the Maryland berries are in season now (and I'm not there) and the Florida berries were in season in February, so I missed those too.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a beautiful color - both the berries and the jam!! I've never made jam, but this has inspired me to at least THINK about starting. My favorite is Strawberry Rhubarb...
ReplyDeleteThe taste of your jam will be better than store bought- that's what got Sarah addicted to making jam---the taste.
ReplyDeleteRM - I am so sorry. You will have to thoroughly enjoy some tomatillos and interesting new peppers to make up for the strawberry loss.
ReplyDeleteEllie, I LOVE strawberry rhubarb. A friend of my grandmother's used to make it every year and I would always ask for one piece of bread with her jelly on it (it was too precious to ask for more!) Sadly, that lady passed away. Maybe it's time for me to learn to do it myself.
ReplyDeleteSue, you are so right. We tried it on Monday and boy was it good! N said, "I think we might need more. Why doesn't everyone do this?" Ha!
ReplyDeleteBy that does N mean, "Why doesn't everyone enjoy the jam that everyone's wife took hours to make?", or did he help in the hulling of hundreds of little berries?
ReplyDeleteI know and then there are the pink fingers! The blueberries are out down here and I hope to get some to freeze/eat. More shade than stawberries !!
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