Picked about 5-6 ice cream buckets worth. I don’t know how fast they ripen but I was just a bit early, maybe a week. Still plenty of ripe ones and today was probably my best opportunity. I have lived here 30+ years and have never seen such a crop of chokecherry. But it could be that they were just never on my radar as last year was my first time ever making jelly.
I finally got a chance to find and harvest some elderberries. I’ll make a jam soon. Also one part of my backyard is a low lying swale, in full sun so it’s perfect for growing them. I’ll put some seed aside to see if I can get my own patch going.
First jar. From taste test, I think I need to make a concerted effort to find more while they’re still ripe
They’re not ripe yet around here. But after discovering last year how much I like them… you can bet your ash that I’ll be on them like a chicken on a June bug once they are.
Yours must not be too far behind though, I imagine. The ones up on the mountain near my house peaked this week, but the plants growing 30 miles southeast close to my work are all picked clean already. Seems the birds get them as soon as they're perfect. I don't come across them often at all unfortunately, which is why I'm hoping to get some started in my own yard. My jelly from Friday ended up being syrup (not enough pectin I'm guessing) but it's still great. Do you have any wild grapes in your area? The taste of the finished elderberry syrup reminded me a lot of the wild grape jelly I've made in years prior.
I kinda jumped the gun on chokecherries. I went out 3 separate times to pick. The last time was obviously when they were the most ripe. And there’s still plenty on the bushes but I’m guessing they are a bit past their prime now. I think I have 8 one gallon bags in the freezer
We do have wild grapes here. I seen some when I was gathering chokecherries. Had quite a ways to go before ripe. Again I never gave them much notice before but now I would like to give them a try also. Might take a bit of scrounging to get very many. I haven’t seen much fruit on the vines. Maybe just not their year. But we have lots of wild plums getting pretty close to ready.
So last week on Saturday I went out with a friend who started me on foraging, to check on the elderberry crop. Someone had already been to the honey hole from last year, and a couple other patches were not ripe yet, so came up empty. This Saturday saw different results! I may go back out this afternoon or tomorrow. Still a couple patches that I haven’t checked yet. And still lots of them that need a little more time.
Got about 3.5 groceries bags of apples from the park. These will be the first batch of applesauce this year.
Ran a small trial batch of about 12 apples. First time making applesauce without peeling or coring. Saved some time. Not sure I will do the rest this way, as we usually make it chunky. The strainer attachment presses it all thin. Still good though!
I made apple butter and apple jelly both for the first time last year. I peeled and cored them and used the peels and cores for the jelly and the cleaned part for the apple butter. Was very pleased with the results of both products
