Tag: Farm

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Canning Blackberry Jam

I finished up canning my first ever Blackberry Jam. I tried to make it once before but ended up with blackberry globs. This time I used and followed a solid recipe.

Having a good recipe (and following it) is key to making the jam. It seems that if you don’t have exactly the right elements in exactly the right quantities and blended in sequence and cooked for the appropriate amount of time then it won’t ‘set’ the way it needs to. If it sets wrong you end up with a watery mix that separates in the jar.

I started with 9 cups of berries that I pulled a few weeks back, smashing them with a potato masher and dumped into a large pot. I added 1 and 1/3 package of pectin mixed into 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of bottled lemon juice, a teaspoon of butter. I brought this to a full boil and then added 6 and 1/2 cups of sugar and stirred constantly until it came to a full boil once again.

I was able to jar 8 1/2 half pint jars. 8 went into the canner for a hot water bath that lasted 10 minutes. The half jar went into the fridge.

Now most recipes don’t have either the lemon juice or the butter in them, but I think both are critical. The lemon increases the acidity of the berries enough to ensure that the berries, pectin and sugar mix together and set the way it’s supposed to. The teaspoon of butter keeps the blackberry ‘mash’ from foaming once it comes to a full boil.

A short while ago I tasted from the jar that went into the fridge; it tastes nothing, nothing like store bought blackberry jam. The best way I can describe it is to say that it tastes like real fruit….like real food!

Gotta run and clean up the kitchen before wifey finds the mess I’ve made.

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Around the Farm and In the Garden

I was able to get out to the garden between rain events today and pulled in baskets (plural) of tomatoes (Bonny Best, Besser Cherry and Katinka Cherry), If you have a garden I highly recommend the Besser cherry tomato for next year. They are a larger cherry tomato, has a great taste, and it’s extremely prolific.

The jalapenos are going strong and I harvested about 100 or so. Again, there are 2 or 3 times more smaller peppers left on the plants than the large ones I harvested. All four plants are still blooming so I know I’ve got at least 4 weeks of good harvest left on them. Last year they made it until the first frost.

Brought in the first of the banana peppers of the season and the first of the slicing cucumbers (not pickling cucumbers) also found 8 large bell peppers hiding among the dense foliage of those plants. My daughter and grand daughters were over and we sliced up the cuc’s, banana peppers, and washed off some cherry tomatoes as finger food (using ranch dressing for a dip)

I missed plucking pickling cucumbers and the straight neck squash yesterday so had to trash much of the fruit they had produced. Both are going like gangbusters so will be harvesting again tomorrow (rain or shine).

My Roma tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. I’ve go 20 plants in and each are absolutely loaded with fruit so will be cranking up the canner in about a week to make salsa, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauces. Cayenne peppers are coming along fine and it will be 2 weeks or so before the first of the fruit are ready to pick and dehydrate.

I should have harvested more basil but completely forgot about it until I went for a snack a short while ago and realized I had used my last jar of pesto. I’m a pesto junky now and so need to get the basil plucked to crank up a few more jars. When the rains end I’ll be harvesting some of the other herbs I’ve put in and getting those put up: Thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and parsley. I’ll let the dill go to seed on whatever plants I don’t pull to use for pickling.

Habanero (or however you spell them) are flowering and so a couple of weeks from now they will be ready. What a deceitfully small plant and innocent looking fruit for something that kicks so hard. Best use? Ceviche ! I got hooked on this treat while in Panama and love it. If Wednesday works out the way it’s forecast to, maybe I can use bass to make up a batch.

Y’all enjoy the rest of your weekend and remember, Saturday is only 5 working days away!

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Around the Farm with paint.net

This summer I took a picture of one of the many wild Spider Lilies that we have growing around the farm.  It is immediately below.  The two images that follow are the same picture that have been modified using paint.net.  Both mods are using the ‘Tile Reflection’ tool/utility.  Tried to post these earlier, but the image size was so large they would not upload.  Enjoy!

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Around the Farm

This old farm home sits next to my property on the very southern most tract in Giles County Tennessee.  The elderly gentleman that lived here died at age 93 two years ago. 

Another neighbor (SL) bought the house and roughly 45 acres that it sat on.  Along with the acreage he previously owned, SL now has about 500 acres.  All of these acres, less those purchased along with this house, are in timber.  He is a big hunter, and so planted the acreage around the house in soy beans to draw the deer in.  

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Around the Farm

After a couple of days of much needed rain it dried out on Saturday and Sunday.  The break in weather gave me the opportunity to shore up the slope near the front of my house.  I moved 10 railroad ties into position and created a a series of small retaining walls that tiered the 3 foot drop.  Will move dirt into my creation in the next few days.