Hello, steemians, and welcome to da garden, eh!
A few days ago I picked my second batch of strawberries from my small strawberry patch. These plants are a June bearing type, so all the berries get ripe over a period of a couple of weeks instead of producing all summer. You get more berries at a time that way, but they only produce 1 crop per year.
This is my strawberry patch. I took this picture in June. It's not a big patch, but it produces a lot of berries.
My second picking was quite productive, I got more berries than I did from the first picking. Of course, then I had to process them. To do that, I wash them in cold water in a colander, and then I pull the stem cap off the berry and cut it in half long ways. Then it goes into the stock pot to prepare for cooking down into strawberry syrup. Of course, I cut out any bad spots also.
From there, you add some sugar to the berries, according to the volume of the berries from my recipe, and cook them down on a low heat so that you don't burn the berries.
What you end up with is a nice strawberry syrup that can be used on ice cream or shortcake, or you can make jam with it by adding the pectin and further cooking, following a jam recipe. I'm sure there are other creative ways to use it, such as in smoothies or in baking, or even to make wine. I've been freezing the syrup in pint freezer containers for now until I decide what I want to do with it all.
Well, that's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting.
Thanks for stopping by my page and checking out my post, eh!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or a question if you would like.
May the Steem Force be with you!
Those strawberries look very appetizing. Nice on a warm day. 🐓🐓
I can feel the fragrance. Mouth watered ;-) Where to get 'em at this time of the night?
Wow!!! You harvested so many berries!! I would absolutely make jams with them!
Those look amazing, @amberyooper! I bet it turned out delicious!
wow! thats super awesome and looks sooooo gooddd!! luckyyy. is it tough to plant and pick? how much time do you soend on both? will you can? sorry for all the questions :)