There are a lot of fruit related posts in your future so buy a cute apron, find your cherry pitter and get ready for the fun of pouring a waterfall of sugar into a pot of simmering strawberries.
Strawberries are the first berry to come into season and they're also my favourite. Strawberries are easy to grow, they multiply so you can have a constant supply of plants but they aren't pushy about it and they're not rhubarb. So that's always exciting.
After strawberry harvest in the berryland calendar are raspberries.
My thoughts on raspberries are this.
Absolutely not. Nope. Never Again.
karen bertelsen
My raspberry patch is gone. I ripped it out with style, flourish and fury this spring.
I was sick of the maintenance, their pathological desire to spread into everything around them, their thorn covered limbs and also last year when I made fruit roll ups I noticed - worms.
The whole batch got thrown into the chicken coop and that was it for me and raspberries.
When picking strawberries they're always cooperative and never demand I stretch my arm through a bed of nails to get one.
So the only jam for this year is going to be strawberry jam which I am out of because I stand in front of the fridge at night with a jar of plain yogurt - homemade greek yogurt or storebought, I don't care, and a jar of jam and eat back and forth between them.
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
Spoon of greek yogurt, dip it into the strawberry jam, eat. That's how I go through all of my jam.
My strawberry jam recipe is the classic box of Certo (pectin) strawberry jam. I do not want healthy jam without sugar. I want bad jam with a waterfall of sugar poured into it.
As of this very moment I don't have any strawberries but I do have strawberry plants with flowers.
This is a long weekend in Canada so I'll be finishing getting my garden ready for planting by building new structures - my brilliant hinged hoop houses finally rotted out so those have to be replaced.
I'm trying something new in place of the hoop houses, and if it works it'll be an even easier way to keep flies and moths off of taller plants like peppers and broccoli.
And yes, if it works, I'll be posting about it quickly so you'll have time to set it up yourself for gardening season.
In the meantime, here's your weekend puzzle. Watch out for worms.
The 56 Piece Puzzle
Have a good weekend!
Sam Cowell
Seeing that bowl of red raspberries & blackberries reminded me of when I was a kid growing up in S.W. Pennsylvania in mid summer, wild black raspberries grew everywhere & I'd tell my Mom, today I'm going out to pick a bucket full of black raspberries if she'd make us a big black raspberry cobbler for supper. Off I'd go right after breakfast & in 4 hours I'd be back with a bucket full of raspberries. I always ate as many as I picked. We'd eat black raspberry cobbler & Vanilla Ice cream for dessert for a couple days! My fingers would be stained black for a week afterward. Those were the days!
Sam Cowell
That photo of the strawberry jam jars with you topping the strawberries into the bowl would make a great puzzle I think.
Cara
I was on Cape Cod with family for a week and just came home. I missed my puzzle from you....so happy to have just found it - always fun to work them. Thanks
Karen
Hi Cara - I'd take Cape Code vacation or a puzzle any day. :) ~ karen!
Jan in Waterdown
I completely sucked at the puzzle…. 33:49 😞
I kept losing the pieces 🤷🏼♀️
Sandra D
When we first moved into this house in 2003, there were raspberry plants and we pulled them out; then, I got tired of paying the price of store bought raspberries so a couple of years ago I started to put them back in. Not sure we'll have a lot this year, husband chopped most of the ones that looked dead down! I do have strawberries, too, but they've died back, so I'm going to have to buy some more to replenish them.
Karen
My strawberries have been awful for the past few years because I haven't taken good care of them. I'm hoping this is the year I get them back on track. I LOVE them. ~ karen!
Tarra
Too bad about your negative raspberry experience. Would you consider fall-bearing raspberries? Maintenance is quick and easy - cut all canes back to 2" at the end of winter. Of all the food I've grown, fall-bearing raspberries, ripe from late Aug to frost, have brought me the most delight. Strawberries ust attract Ms. Bear
Karen
I'm going to try a Golden berry which is fall ripening in a pot. Once. IF it's the most delicious raspberry I've ever tried I might think of planting a second pot, lol. ~ karen!
Deb from Maryland
Yum! Great picture; and just my two cents - I am a Raspberry over Strawberry person - not in growing, just in eating. ;)
Karen
Don't be weird. ~ karen!
Karin
You _think_ you got rid of the raspberries. Just like we _thought_ we got rid of mom jeans.
KimS
What?!?! It’s already Friday? How did this happen? I haven’t worked last week’s puzzle. I’m with you on the jam-full on regular white sugar!