I’ve dehydrated 6 gallons of blueberries, frozen 7 gallons of blueberries and made 7 pints of blueberry pie filling. I’ve got a batch of blueberry syrup draining through the jelly strainer thingie right now.
Neighbor gave us close to 3 bushels of apples earlier in the week (Anna, they make very early here). I’ve made 4 batches of ‘caramel apple pie jam’, dehydrated a 9 tray dehydrator load, eaten a bunch and have about 2 more batches of pie filling left to put up from them. Probably dehydrate the rest, we love dried fruit as a topping to oatmeal when it’s cold in the winter.
Probably 15 more gallons of blueberries left on the bushes at this point that need to be picked sometime.
Fall garden transplants sizing up nicely on the driveway.
It’s good for now.
That’s fantastic news about all that produce. The critters got most of our early berries.
...well, I’m gonna quit feeling smug about my day’s preserving prowess. :D
Went blueberry-picking with the Kid (we don’t have any producing yet, but there’s a farm near us with the best-tasting berries I’ve ever had) and got three gallons. One gallon for the dehydrator and two for jam. I tinkered with a sage/white wine flavor for one batch of blueberry jam; it came out pretty tasty but needs about twice as much sage, I think.
My backyard veggie garden is giving me about a pound and a half of squash per day so far, and the cherry tomatoes are juuuuust starting to ripen, which will be a whole ‘nother level of busy. (Thanks to the Kid, we have three phases of summer around here: “DON’T TOUCH THE TOMATOES”, “okay, you can have some tomatoes for a snack”, and “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE EAT SOME TOMATOES”.)
Got your message...and now that I see your post I am SO JEALOUS!
When I had my other farm, and lived a few miles up the road from my (ex) in-laws (I divorced their son but kept THEM to this day!) they were SO generous to me and their Grandchildren.
It wasn’t unusual for me to find 5-gallon buckets of grapes or apples or asparagus on the back porch in season.
Now that I’m establishing a bigger and better garden at my ‘new’ (1900!) farmstead, I could USE a few buckets of goodies on my porch for the next few years until I can get my production levels up to snuff! :)
Wow, I envy you your blueberries! I have three bushes we inherited when we bought the property, and I planted five more. The three were suffering from neglect but everything is thriving now after I acidified the soil. I can’t wait to get my own blueberries!
Can you share your recipe for caramel apple pie jam? It sounds great. We also inherited three apple trees that are early bloomers. And I find those apples to be too soft to can pie filling with. So I just make applesauce with them, and the pie jam sounds fantastic. All three trees are just loaded this year, after having nothing last year.
So I planted three more trees that will have apples ripening in the fall and those are supposed to be a firmer texture. I will be overwhelmed with apples if all goes according to plan.
Oh, I wanted to thank you for all your advice last year. I find it so easy to grow my tomatoes and peppers now by putting down newspaper. I love not having to weed! And your advice on dealing with the blight with the bleach spray is so easy and inexpensive. And best of all, works perfectly!