What are you canning now?

[MsBagawkbagawk]

We have one apple tree and are not-so-patiently waiting for it to bloom and fruit for us. We put it in because our hands down favorite apple is the MacIntosh and you just can't ever find 'em here, so we decided to try growing our own. We put in 2 plum trees a couple years ago and one of them gave us a beautiful harvest this year already...made a scrumptious batch and a half of jam from them. We'd really like to put in a peach, a cherry and a pear as well, but it's just not in the budge for this year

I understand. I always wanted fruit trees and we got lucky when we moved into our house to get several pear, apple, cherry and peach trees. The only variety we're sure of is that the cherries are Queen Anne's and they're SOO amazing, but they also don't come in at all some years.

 

[mickey328]

Cherries and peaches are anything but dependable here...lots of years we get a hard freeze after they bloom and ya get nothing. If you do get fruit, you have to thin heavily and get the bird nets on quick, or you don't get a thing, LOL I'm willing to take the chance though...even if we only get a little once in a while, the trees are beautiful all the time...and since our yard faces south, we can use just about all the shade we can get!

 

[rancher hicks]

If you think $10 for two beans is steep you might want to ask DW what she's paying for "the good stuff" at Williams Sonoma.

Even your two $10 beans will make far more than the amount you can buy for the same price there.

I'm sure you're right but I don't argue with DW.

She was with me when I bought the beans and I was surprised she let me buy them.

 

[mickey328]

Yer a wise man, Rancher

 

[Happy Chooks]

.but I DO remember that Easy Bake oven...I desperately wanted one too...never got it though, LOL



And speaking of jam...last year when I made plum jam it didn't ever set up so it was rather runny...still tasted good and I didn't give any away so we just used it "as is". This year we harvested our own little plum tree for the first time and got enough to make about a batch and a half. I made one and froze the rest of the pulp to use with any other "left overs" in a mixed jam later on. Well...this year it set like concrete! LOL...those plums must have had a lot of pectin in them cuz you can hardly dig it out with a spoon. It's just too funny! I'm thinking I'll have to re-cook the whole batch and add in the frozen pulp just to make it pliable enough to spread. LOL..watch it then turn out runny again!

Me too on the Easy Bake oven.

I like my jam loose - I'm not a fan of maple syrup, so I use my jams on pancakes/french toast. I did have a couple this year come out like rocks too. Warm them up for a bit in the microwave and they are spreadable.

We have one apple tree and are not-so-patiently waiting for it to bloom and fruit for us. We put it in because our hands down favorite apple is the MacIntosh and you just can't ever find 'em here, so we decided to try growing our own. We put in 2 plum trees a couple years ago and one of them gave us a beautiful harvest this year already...made a scrumptious batch and a half of jam from them. We'd really like to put in a peach, a cherry and a pear as well, but it's just not in the budge for this year

Apples take a lonnnnnng time to fruit. My Golden Delicious is 7 years old (planted bare root) and I finally have a nice crop of apples that I'm impatiently waiting for them to ripen. My Arkansas Black Spur apple is 6 years old and it has 6-10 apples on it.

My grandmother has a 30+ year old granny smith tree - she's a widow and doesn't do anything with them, and nobody but me picks them. I will have buckets and buckets of them soon.

 

[mickey328]

Hehe, my Grandma always put jam on her pancakes too. I like both the syrup and jam so I mix it up.

The only jelly I make is crabapple...I just find jelly harder to spread. I don't like huge chunks of fruit either (picky, picky) so I "almost" puree my fruit and make jam. I usually don't have a lot of trouble with consistency but weird stuff does happen..it's all part of the fun, IMO.

I envy you all those Granny Smiths! Next to a good Mac, those are the best...especially for pies and cobblers. The texture is so nice and firm and they so rarely get mealy. They hold up really well for the chunky style applesauce I prefer. While we didn't get an Macs this year, we did get several grocery bags of my all time favorite kind....free! We need to find some more...I still want another batch or two of applesauce and want to put up several quarts of juice as well. There are a couple trees on public land we've been keeping an eye on and once we have a nice frost, we'll go harvest them. There's also a couple crabapple trees near the office...gonna send Dave and DS down to pick them clean. I love the way the house smells when there's apples cooking!

 

[gardendufus]

We have three pear trees. It was just not a good year for them. Most of ours fell off the trees in a wind storm, and the ones remaining are just hard as rocks......Apples too, we've had a lot more quantity then quality unfortunately. But with apples you just make applesauce, butter and juice and it doesn't really matter.

I was looking for recipes for canning pears today, and ran into a blog (can't tell you which one) that said that pears are one of the few fruits that ripen better OFF the tree. Said to go ahead and pick them hard and let them ripen after picking. I have no actual knowledge or experience, just sayin............

I had an apple tree on my property when I bought it, but it split in half in our first winter freeze. I'm hesitant to plant any fruit trees, even tho I want them, cuz we have so many squirrels here and I'm not sure how I would keep them off the fruit? Anyone with experience?

 

[gardendufus]

Oh, I'm looking to make some almond extract. Can find lotsa sites say soak almonds in Vodka (duh). But only found one site that gave proportions......said equal.......1C blanched, peeled almonds, 1C Vodka. Does this seem like overkill to ya'll? Anyone have experience making this?

 

[Cryptkeeper]

I was looking for recipes for canning pears today, and ran into a blog (can't tell you which one) that said that pears are one of the few fruits that ripen better OFF the tree. Said to go ahead and pick them hard and let them ripen after picking. I have no actual knowledge or experience, just sayin............

I had an apple tree on my property when I bought it, but it split in half in our first winter freeze. I'm hesitant to plant any fruit trees, even tho I want them, cuz we have so many squirrels here and I'm not sure how I would keep them off the fruit? Anyone with experience?

Plant lots and lots of trees!! You get some squirrels get some...........

 

[MsBagawkbagawk]

Quote:
We tried taking a few off, but they just got brown. I guess they couldn't have a middle ground. We cut one up and it seemed kinda gritty. I'm going to try to pick some this weekend and see how they are. Oh well, the goats LOVE them no matter what, so they definitely don't go to waste....