Canning Day 1

Ben got off early on Friday, so we headed down to Knott’s Island, NC (about an hour away) to pick peaches at the local orchard.  They were supposed to be ready this week, and I wanted to make a batch of peach jam.  When we arrived around 1pm we were told that a lot of pickers came in the morning, and they were out of peaches!  They had a couple of 10 pound bags already picked that we could purchase.  We bought one, though I am not too thrilled with the quality of the peaches.  Hopefully it will make some good jam.

 

Having struck out in the peach department, we stopped by the blueberry patch on the way home and hit the jackpot.  They were on sale for $1.76 per pound for pick your own blueberries, and they were ripe & sweet.  We spend about an hour picking and ended up with almost two buckets – I think it’s around 10 pounds.  Ben’s favorite is blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, and I want to try some jam. 

 

I spent the morning picking out the stems and doing a batch of jam.  I ended up with eleven 1/2 pint jars of blueberry jam.  The little dab of leftover jam is very tasty!  I’ve never had blueberry jam before that I can recall.  I only used half of the berries, so this afternoon I am going to freeze the other half for pies, cereal, and pancakes. 

 

Here are my pictures…

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Cooking the fruit into jam…

 

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Processing the jam…

 

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The finished product.  Within five minutes all of the jars had “popped” to let me know they are sealed.  Now we just have to see if it all sets up properly…

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