We went to a you-pick strawberry place in Cottageville, WV on Sunday. Â It’s about 35 minutes away (though for the kids, it was a 2 year long trip) and was a nice Sunday drive. Â We got to Hartley Farms and found a huge field of the biggest and best strawberries I have ever seen (though I didn’t know that part right away). Â The proprietor took us over to a row and told us to, “have at it”. Â I fully expected to have to search and dig and really work to find a few scrawny strawberries. Â We picked 2 years ago at a place closer to home and it was pitiful. Â Hartley Farms was $0.55 per pound cheaper and there were hundreds of big fat berries everywhere!
We filled 7 ice cream buckets to overflowing and weighed in. Â All told, we had about 32 pounds of berries! Â The best part is that the kids even helped pick! Â We jumped in the car hoping to get home before Isaac ate every last strawberry. Â Though he made a run at eating 32#, we did make it home with a few berries. Â All four of us started making jam though the kids were tired after a batch each. Â They wanted to take a jar to their teachers that they had made.
Emily and I continued on into the night making jar after jar of jam. Â Isaac in particular like strawberry jam so the 43 half-pints we made may last us the year (and may not). Â We still have somewhere around 8 pounds of berries to go…not sure if that will be jam or something else yet. Â We have a fair bit of cleanup yet to do. Â Of course, it is impossible to make jam without making stuff sticky and our floor is sticky indeed. Â I have mopped it several times but my socks still leave little fuzzy footprints when I walk in the kitchen.
And by the way, when you make strawberry jam, make sure you use a huge pot to boil your mixture.  We forgot since last time and we boiled a pot of sticky strawberry syrup over the edge of the sauce pan we had and onto the hot burner on our (wretched) glass-topped stove.  You guessed it…it caramelized and tried to burst into flame.  We never saw fire, but our house was full of smoke before I could get the mess cleaned up…so, word to the wise, use a huge pot to boil the mix!  Luckily we had a better pot so subsequent batches were fine!
It was fun to clean up too!
Yum-they look so good!
(I’m really impressed by your patent talent below LOL!)
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My solution to overenthusiastic strawberry picking is to freeze the excess on trays, transfer to freezer bags and store for future jam making or smoothies.
I see a strawberry pie in the works for tonight. We will definitely make some more jam as I have enough strawberries prepared for 2 more batches. We might try freezing some, although we have a wretched side by side refrigerator and no other freezing options, so there is not much room. I just love this time of year!
Delicious strawberries!
.-= YDavis´s last blog ..Golden Friday – You don’t know Jack =-.
Yummy!
.-= Caprilis´s last blog ..Crossing Things Off the Wish List =-.
I love freezer Jam the best but with limited freezer space makes it difficult.
SCRUMTRULESCENT!
Freezing for smoothies sounds good too.
.-= Capri Kel´s last blog ..Three Days =-.
We ended up making the rest into pie…no smoothies from this batch!
I love strawberries!!
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Oh that is so awesome