I’m taking a break here from making and canning fruit preserves, and I see a couple of fruit flies on my laptop screen! As usual, as fruit season winds down, the fruit flies are having a last hurrah before the frosts of November do them in.
I like to pick strawberries when I can, in June, and immediately afterwards, cherries around the beginning of July. I prefer to use locally-grown fruit for the preserves that I sell at Fredonia Farmer’s Market.
Most of the berries that I grow on Ceres Farm (blueberries, gooseberries, and black and red currants) all ripen at the same time, in July. Normally, in June and July, I’m very busy playing fiddle and nyckelharpa with our Swedish traditional band Svenska Spelman, for many Midsommar festivities and the Jamestown Scandinavian Festival. So as I harvest fruit, I clean & pre-measure it and put it in my freezer.
This year, of course, has been different, with gigs cancelled all summer. I got to catch up on a lot of brush-chopping and wood-cutting at the farm. Now that it’s pleasant to have all the burners going on the stove, I’m making preserves. Despite the difficulty getting canning jars, all is moving along, and I’ll have jam for your toast for the winter!
