Hello & Canning so far

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here... Not too sure why, probably just since I haven't had much to say... so I'll keep this post short so as to not bore you to death.

Last weekend we picked berries, and we picked a LOT! It's craziness how many blackberry bushes there are at the farm. It seems like with the weather this year everything is late producing fruit, the blackberries are no different. There was plenty of ripe and juicy berries for us to pick but I'd say about 75% of the fruit weren't ready yet. We picked several gallons of berries and will probably wait a couple weeks before another mammoth picking session.

So, I made jam for the first time ever! It was quite a process but so much fun, AND the jam tastes yummers too, so that's a bonus. I made two batches, one just straight blackberry and the second is blackberry, blueberry & strawberry mix. I also made a batch of blackberry pie filling and canned that, but all the recipes called for a product called 'ClearJel' that I couldn't find in any of the stores close by so I subbed with cornstarch. I don't know if it turned out ok, it seems a little runny to me, but I guess the only way to know for sure is to make a pie and see... so I guess I'll be doing that next week sometime too.

I'm still holding out for apples... I have an awesome recipe for canned apple pie filling and I'd love to have that stashed away for the winter.