I dub thee, Brasperries

Since Big Bro was a toddler we have loved picking wild black raspberries every summer from bushes found in our yard. Typically we didn't find that many berries so we would just eat them as we found them. 

Lil Sis also loves the taste of wild black raspberries so the tradition has continued. This year, we discovered two large black raspberry bushes that had gone unnoticed. Or maybe they just were never there before this year.

We went out one cool and rainy July night and started picking berries and putting them into our jar. The kids likened the sound of dropping their berries into the empty jar to Little Sal in Blueberries for Sal "kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk."

We picked and picked to get 4 cups worth thinking that would be enough for jam.

After looking at the actual recipe turns out 10 cups were required. We picked another 3 cups a couple days later. My good friend contributed a few more cups gathered from her own yard and we were able to make a delicious batch of blackberry, I mean black raspberry jam. After all of us making that linguistic mistake countless times I dubbed them officially "Brasperries."

The jam was amazing. A welcomed change from our usual strawberry jam.

Grape Jelly

I remember my first year of college in Maine at a tiny college full of earth conscious individuals. My housemates were way ahead of me in terms of wanting to be self-sufficient and depending directly on the earth. I remember them making lots of rather disgusting recipes, but at least they were trying. They collected acorns to make flour that they then baked into bread. It was bitter and awful, but resourceful. They collected wild edibles for teas and berries for jam. I remember the jam was also a disaster and they added more and more pectin and were confused why it still wouldn't set.

Here I am, 15 years later. I finally am feeling domesticated enough where this all makes sense to me enough to want to do it. At least the jelly part anyway, I will skip the acorn bread. I set out to make grape jelly with just my Ball Canning Book by my side.

First I boiled the grapes my friend gave me to break them down.

Then I let the liquid filter through some cheesecloth for several hours to separate the juice from the pulp.

I even used the food mill to turn the pulp into a smooth grape sauce. I have been reluctant to use it because of mess, but after finally trying it I see the appeal.

A couple days later I boiled the grape juice with sugar, then said a little prayer as I poured in the pectin and boiled it for one minute more. The jelly looked really soupy and I was afraid I had somehow repeated the mistakes of my Maine college housemates. But lo and behold, after a couple hours of cooling the jelly set! Now I can add jelly to my no-need-to-purchase-at-the-grocery-store list.

The Cider Pressing Party

This weekend we went to a Cider Pressing Party. I've seen cider made at commercial orchards, but never tried it myself so it was a fun, new experience. We picked more than two bushels of apples from our own trees:

That in itself was fun. My husband climbed the trees and tossed them to me to catch. My son climbed the trees too and my daughter stood next to me posing to catch apples too. Adorable. Then went to a friend's house where they had some cider presses ready for guests to use and make our own apple cider.

My son helped me work the manual cider press. He tossed in the apples and I turned the crank.

Turning the crank chops up the apples into little chunks (skin and cores included) and collects them in a cheese cloth lined bucket.

Then, when it's full (or you're out of apples), you use the cheese cloth to wrap up the apple chunks, then put the bucket under the press. You then turn another lever to press the apple pulp....

and out flows the cider!



But it still has some apple pulp in it, so it gets filtered through some more cheesecloth before coming out the spout to fill your containers with the sweetest, freshest cider ever.

We ended up processing only half of our original 2+ bushels of apples, but here were our spoils: more than 4 gallons of apple cider to share and freeze.

We left our remaining apples at the party for others to use for their own cider. I'm looking forward to next year's cider party!



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Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free

In 2012 the USDA upgraded my area from Plant Hardiness Zone 4b to 5a. The zones are based on decades of climate data and tell you what plants will survive in your region. So, thanks to climate change, my little corner of the world has warmed enough to get a new designation on a gardening map. That's a little scary...but hey, look on the bright side, now I can grow peaches with confidence that they will survive the winter.

We planted two peach trees in 2011, but this is the first year that they really produced fruit. A bumper crop, I might add.

One of our two peach trees, summer 2013

They are, hands-down, the best peaches I have had in years. Store bought peaches are always hard, mealy, and flavorless. These are so sweet and juicy you have to slurp them up while you bite into them.

The only challenge is how to deal with this delicate, and short-lived crop. I have given many away to friends and family. That took care of maybe half of them. Luckily, I have a good friend who is teaching me how to can and preserve food. We spent a morning halving, peeling, and pitting the peaches, converting some into peach jam, and preserving the rest in a light syrup.

peach peels

peach jam

peaches in light syrup sealing in the canner

We sampled the peach jam, it was amazing. It will be such a treat to open these up in the middle of winter for a taste of summer. Back at home I added some fresh peach pieces into homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum! Next up will be harvesting and preserving our pear crop.

Vanilla/peach ice cream made by me. The peaches are a bit hard to see

, but they're in there!

Blueberry Picking

Originally written on July 24, 2013

Important lessons from childhood, in my mind, include being in a garden and eating food straight from the earth. That's why we have gone berry picking every summer since my son was one year old. We skipped his first summer because being a spring baby he was too young, or rather, I was too new to motherhood to attempt it.

The summer he was one, we went strawberry, blueberry and raspberry picking several times. We went to Sam Mazza's in Colchester, Pomykala Farm in Grand Isle, and Blue Thumb Farm in South Hero. I was amazed how readily he picked the berries with his pudgy little hands and knew just to eat the ripe ones. He also bonded with his grandfather picking strawberries from Grandpa's own little strawberry patch in the yard.

The following summer we went strawberry picking at Pomykala Farm and blueberry picking at Blue Thumb Farm more than once. Being two years old, he was in the "you do it" phase. Mostly he would spend his time trying to eat berries out of my bucket, much like the little bear in Robert McCloskey's book Blueberries for Sal.


Image from Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

This summer he is three and once again we have gone strawberry picking multiple times at Pomykala Farm, and we just did our first blueberry picking outing at Blue Thumb Farm this morning. Actually, since my son is a berry-picking-extraodinaire, today was really his second blueberry picking trip. He went to Blue Thumb Farm with his aunt and grandmother this past weekend too. Big Bro was so helpful filling up the buckets and liked to have contests about who could pick the most berries. He always said he won no matter what though, hmmm... The extra fun part is that today was his little sister's first time blueberry picking (or picking at all, she was asleep for the strawberry picking last month). Just like her brother, she was phenomenal at eating everything she picked and only picked the bluest of the blues.

Blueberry Picking 2011




Blueberry picking 2013






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