Strawberry Jam

Yesterday morning I worked for about 4 hours on making strawberry jam. I was about up to the canning part when both kids woke up! We had already gone to a new farm (Homestead Farm in Faulkner, MD) to load up on berries for jam so I could start as soon as my eyes were open enough.

Hulling and chopping the berries comes first (along with washing if necessary). Then cooking the berries until soft. I decided I wanted a smooth consistency this time (instead of fruit chunks) so I used my blender on the whole batch. I sweetened with local honey, thickened with agar agar flakes, and popped it all in the canning jars. My recipe is not for a super sweet jam, I like the berry flavor to dominate over the sweetness. However my sweets-loving son said it was good. Here's the big-ass pot I used (thanks mom!) and the finished jars.



Here's the recipe:

Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
8 quarts of fresh strawberries (which weighed a total of 10 lb 7 oz and measured out to be about 16 c)
1.5-2 c honey
8 T agar agar flakes (a seaweed)

Directions:
Cook strawberries until soft on medium heat (do not boil). Add honey to taste* (must cool berry mixture down for proper taste test) and stir well. Add 1/2 the agar flakes, stir, and continue on med heat for a few minutes. Do a consistency test**. Add 1 T flakes at a time until berry mixture is not quite solid enough for you. Stop there before you end up with a brick. Now get it in the jars and hide it until harvest season has passed!

Yield: about 2 cups

* The taste of hot things differs from cold things. The berries need to be cool for proper taste test. Here's how: use a small plate or bowl, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes, put a small dollop of mixture on plate, return to freezer until cool, then taste and adjust honey amount.

** Consistency Test: The agar flakes gel when they get cool/cold. Use the plate in the freezer trick again, but this time make sure the strawberry mixture really and truly gets cold. Always err on the side of not enough and too runny jam. Otherwise, you could add too much agar and end up with jam the consistency of a hockey puck.

How Green Are You?

I get The Green Guide To Go in my email inbox. This week's mentioned the recent Greendex rating so I went to check it out. Of course, I had to take the survey to see what my personal Greendex number comes out to be. I guess my friends are right, I am the greenest person they know. My Greendex is 59 out of a possible 60. I am pretty green by their standards. What are you?

A New Garden Bed

You saw the cool new trellis we made to shade our AC fans in the last post? Now there is a sheet mulched area all around it to make a new garden bed!


I thought about this new garden bed. I was worried about the soil washing right down onto the walkway. I thought about water retention in this bed. Since the best place to store water or plants is in the soil, I decided to build a short retaining wall. I used the leftover blocks from the walkway to make this short wall. Now it holds both soil and water in the garden bed instead of dumping where we walk.


Under the bricks for the wall, I laid that good ole newspaper to smother the weeds and stuck it under the blocks to anchor the paper. On top of the newspaper (in overlapping sections about 10-20 sheets thick), I put an entire truckload of manure from the farm where our neighbor's horse resides. On top of that, I put triple ground mulch (no more free from County!). Look how tall it is now!

Gazebo Turned Trellis

As part of my new gardening plan, we transformed a patch of grass with the AC fan units against the house into a food garden spot. First thing was to start sheet mulching to convert the hard red clay dirt and weedy grass into loamy garden soil. This was a half-way step since I did not have sufficient materials to really sheet mulch well. Right now it is just newspaper and the free mulch that my county gives away from residents' yard waste.


Then we took the upright posts from a damaged gazebo and turned them into a trellis system. The gazebo used to provide shade to our west facing deck but hurricane related rain and a tarp which was too impervious to water caused the gazebo roof to collapse be unusable. We kept the sides knowing that they could be reused somehow. We found the perfect project! When there is something growing on these trellises, the fan units for the air conditioning system will be shaded. Now, we only turn on our AC for about 6 weeks during our toasty Maryland summers, but we know the AC will operate more efficiently if the fans are shaded. The fans face west with southern exposure as well.

Now, to find a plant guild (language from permaculture - check out Gaia's Garden for an intro to home-scale permaculture) that will thrive in this spot. Climbing vines with a lot of leaf cover and fast growing are what I need right now!

What's the next step? To sheet mulch properly. I borrowed my friend's truck again and am going to get more horse manure and mulch tomorrow. Then plant!

My Newest Adventure

Over the last month, I have started something new to me. What is it you ask? Here's the uphill climb...

Last fall, a friend asked me why, as a local food advocate, I did not have a garden to grow my own food. I didn't even have to think about it before answering. In the past, I have not had a great rapport with living things. I mean I can keep most house plants alive, but lush they are not. I have carefully avoided the common problem of overwatering by ignoring them until they droop or leaves start to turn brown. They would gladly go to another house if they had a chance. So the idea of growing my own food seemed almost comical.

The funny thing is that I make my own yogurt, bread, mozzarella cheese, and almost other kind of food we enjoy. I can sew (thanks Mom!), knit, crochet, sing, and do all sorts of other things. Why not grow some food? I talked with a farming friend; she said I could certainly grow a cherry tomato plant or two. She even volunteered to give me the plants, compost, and advice. That offer helped a lot. So I thought about the cost of various locally grown foods and decided to try the most expensive ones that were also easy to grow. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes here we go!

The more I thought about it, the more I read. The more I read, the more I realized I know a lot of gardening info already. I have a great resource book that I bought when we moved into this house in 2000. I am a Mother Earth News subscriber. I have several friends who farm for a living and several more friends who have home gardens. I am home a lot and have two sometimes willing helpers. So I thought I could handle more than 4 plants.

When it seemed like spring had sprung, I went and bought 5 everbearing strawberry plants from a local nursery (Heaven's Garden). I posted to freecycle for empty plastic cat litter buckets to serve as plant containers. I heard from a friend who offered me all her strawberry plants from last year. Alright!

Then I thought of how fabulous blueberries would be to have at home. I went and bought 4 blueberry plants (2 varieties for cross fertilization) and the leaf compost to help turn our dirt into soil. I got them into the ground and knew I needed to get them mulched soon. I was avoiding purchasing bagged mulch because of the waste of the plastic bags.

Then the Universe Provided for me.

I called my organic farming friend and shared my progress so far. That same day she sent over seedlings ready for transplant. She gave me the following seedlings: 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 heirloom tomatoes, 2 hybrid tomatoes, 2 parsley, 4 lacinato kale, and 15 lettuces. What a sweet friend! I had thought I would go with containers for all the plants because I did not want to fight the deer and rabbits for the food.

The same day a wonderful woman from Australia came to couchsurf with us. Sally is really into permaculture. She stayed with us for nearly a week and really held my hand (and trowel!) while these new transplants began their life at my house. She helped me plant, planted for me, and willingly shared lots of advice and information. Next thing I know, we are talking about the best places for more garden, borrowing a friend's pickup truck, and bringing home 1 bed full of horse manure from the farm my neighbor's kids go to ride and 3 beds full of free mulch from the county for our trees and flower beds. Now I have a whole bed around the blueberry bushes which is busy making great soil and a whole head full of ideas to keep me going! Wow Sally, Thanks so much for your physical and mental support for this new adventure!