In southern Kentucky its blackberry season, and on our homestead, we have tons of wild blackberries! So last Saturday out we went into the really hot sun to pick berries. It takes about two hours to pick a gallon of berries.
But boy it is worth it!
These little gems, and I mean little, take a lot of work and some bloody injuries from the thorns, but anything good needs to be worked for. You can always tell someone has been picking berries by the looks of their scratched-up arms and hands. Enough about the pain….
Let get to the preserving and good eating part of the task!
For this recipe, you will need two pounds of berries, in this case blackberries but you can substitute any berry you want but its blackberry season!
Place your blackberries in a bowl of cold water for about a half an hour, this will encourage any pests to float to the top then rise to clean the berries.Place the berries in a stockpot with four cups of sugar and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes or until the juice runs out of the berries.Slowly heat the berry sugar mix until the it starts to thicken remove from the heat and place into 10 1/2-pint mason jars leaving a half inch head space. Place lids and screw caps and process in a bath (boiling water method) for 15 minutes. Let cool and store in cool dark room or pantry.
Now if you don’t want to can the preserves just place the cooled preserves in a freezer container for future use.
Now if you want to go the extra step and make Jam add two table spoons of pectin and the end of the heating process and it will jell up for jam.Enjoy your preserves on my favorite desert, Ice Cream…..
Let us know what you think!
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Thanks for sharing!
Your welcome!
Thank you very much, @svfarms. Your instructions are very clear and useful to me! But It would be really a treat if you could just past some of your blackberry preserve down the Internet- Steemit this way! Blackberries and all kinds of berries are my favourite!
Now wouldn't that be neat! Thanks for the comment.
My Mother in-law just gave us some home made wild Black berry preserves. Its my favorite. Seeing your pictures makes me want to get it out.
Go for it! Have it on some pancakes instead maple syrup......
Berry picking and preserving is one of our favorite activities. We have been gathering wineberries, which we planted and trellised, to make our first batch of wine. I will have to try this recipe sometime.
Good Luck with the wine, let us know how it turned out!
Wild blackberries are one of the great joys of summer. It takes a fight against the heat, ticks, and chiggers in some places -- and against the thorns in all the blackberry patches. But it's worth it, for sure! I hope you didn't get scratched up too bad! Here's to lots of blackberries in your larder! :D
We have kinda become experts at getting scratched up, but like you said it's well worth it!
Wear your scratches with pride!
Oh ya!
That's some good foraging! For blackberries, it's handy to have a pair of garden hand clippers to make access easier to some of those big, beautiful berries that always seem just out of reach. And a pole to lay against some of the vines to keep them out of the way. Heal up quick from all those scratches! And enjoy your berries!
My wife's idea I have to admit.... Worked out well though! Thanks for the comment.