Picking at the Farm

In my constant quest to "put up" enough food for the winter, I got my friend to come with me and Colin (my son) to a local Pick Your Own farm to get food to freeze/preserve. We made out like bandits!

We went to Larriland Farm in Howard County. The place looks like a postcard. Rolling green hills, rows upon rows of fruit laden trees, and a cute red barn to boot! Since we brought the babies, we had to decide how to best spend our picking time. While Emily fed Jack his cereal, I had my first experience picking beets. I thought you'd need a shovel to dig up beets, but when they are ready to be harvested, they pop up out of the ground. I picked a 5 lb bag in about 5 minutes.
Next, we picked blueberries. Colin was so helpful-he kept grabbing the branches and holding on to them while I picked the berries.
I picked the raspberries while Emily stayed in the car with the air on for the babies. Then it was off to the red barn to pick up some of the produce that the farm offers. I left with the 3 lbs. of blueberries, 1 lb of raspberries, 5 lbs of beets, 2 lbs of potatoes, a dozen ears of corn, 4 lbs of plums, 3 jars of honey from bees kept on the farm, some edible flowers, and some chocolate mint (chocolate flavored plants!). All for less than $70. What a bargain!
Then began the hard part. I spent the rest of the day freezing, preserving, and making jam. I froze the blueberries and the corn, and canned the plums (I forgot to ask if they were the freestone or semi-clingstone variety. Alas they were not, so I spent a lot of time cutting out the pits). I made jam from the raspberries. The recipe called for equal parts of berries and sugar (4 cups each), but I've used up my last sugar, so I substituted honey for the sugar. I only used half of the amount of sugar and I cooked the jam for twice as long. Some websites suggested using pectin if using honey instead of sugar, but I couldn't find local pectin. So, we'll see how the jam turns out. It might turn out to be more like raspberry sauce than jam. I'll test it before giving it away as gifts.

A good day.