Utah!

[Stands With A Fiddle]

I get fruit in my back yard. I have wild plum, chinese plum, and apricot trees. I do an apricot spice jam, wild plum, chinese plum, and plum mix. Last year I made some killer Apricot Jalapeno. This year I am going to try Plum Jalapeno, but that's not for sale until I can figure out whether or not the venture succeeded. I can also do just plain apricot, but I've found that the Garam Masala in the Apricot Jam is just absolutely wonderful.

 

[NurseDr]

Quote:
I would love your Apricot Jalapeno recipe, if you will share you secret. I love my apricot tree but can not eat them fast enough.

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

Sure. I basically just got it off the internet. Below is the cut and paste from a mass email I sent to some friends who asked for the recipe:

Apricot Pepper Jelly - off the Internet

1 large red pepper, seeded and chopped
2 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup hot peppers, seeded and chopped (I use a mix of peppers such as Cubanelles, jalapenos, serranos, cayennes, and cherry peppers)
8 or 9 fresh apricots, pitted and sliced very thinly plus 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
6 cups sugar
1 pouch (3 oz) liquid pectin


Add the peppers, apricots, vinegar and sugar to a large pot and stir. Bring to a full rolling boil for about 8 minutes. Add the pectin and stir in. Bring back to the boil for 5 minutes. Fill jars and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Jennifer's Modifications & FYI’s (Full Disclosure):

1. I added a couple of drops of food coloring to help the orange color along.
2. Of the hot peppers recommended for this recipe, I only used jalapenos.
3. I have never worked with liquid pectin prior to using this recipe. It failed to set. I then bought the powder packet that I always use for canning, followed the set-failure recipe, and it set just fine. If you try this recipe, you’re on your own with the pectin issue.

For the dried apricots, I actually have a food dehydrator so I dried my own. I highly recommend that you get yourself one if you can't eat them fast enough! I love having the dried ones all winter.

Also, I have lots and lots and lots and lots of grapes. I will be attempting grape jelly as well this summer. More to come on whether or not it worked out and will be sold.​

 

[hen-thusiast]

Those all sound delicious! Especially the plum ones! We'll buy some when you start selling them! (We need to get a pressure cooker at some point....)

 

[vermontgal]

Awesome sounding recipe! Now I just gotta plant that apricot tree. And to return the topic to chickens, does anyone have a mulberry tree around here? They are supposed to be an awesome combo with chickens. If you (yourself) pick the fruit, that's great. If you miss the fruit and it falls to the ground in your run, it is like raining chicken feed. I

mulberries.

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

I don't know about mulberries, but my chickens eat fallen apricots, wild plums, chinese plums (actually they jump up to pick those), and grapes.

 

[muddypuddles]

Yesterday morning, I was walking through the gully near my home and noticed that one of the yards that border it had a pen with 6 or 8 pullets up against the fence-line. I stopped to watch them and noticed that the pen was open on the top--about 6 ft tall and had chicken wire sides. There was a tarp over an open structure inside it to provide shelter. I don't know if they bring them in at night but I thought those girls are sitting ducks for the raccoons living in the gully. My husband was appalled when I said I thought I should write a note and pin it to the fence suggesting they beef up their setup--he thought that was too nosey. What do you guys think --- mind my own business or leave a note?

 

[Stands With A Fiddle]

I forgot to close the coop on Friday night and had a chicken get snatched out. I don't know if it was a fox or raccoon. The rest of the girls were shaken up, but the one hen disappeared without a trace. She was one of the sweet ones.

 

[muddypuddles]

Oh I'm so sorry! We do have a lot of raccoons in this area. I've forgotten to close my coop up two or three times this spring too but thankfully they were all okay the next day. I'm so afraid of losing one that way that once I went out at 3:30 in the morning to close it when I woke up and remembered.

 

[writermom]

Quote:
I don't see anything wrong with leaving a polite note mentioning that you're concerned about the safety of the chickens given that raccoons are around. Perhaps they really don't know how risky it is to have chickens kept in that kind of enclosure overnight. You could mention some relatively easy nighttime housing ideas (a large dog crate, etc.), and you could give them the url for BYC so they can find out more about chickens and chicken care.