2022, 2023, 2024 Fruit seasons

[SwampDonkey]

Have noticed some 3" diameter cantaloupes, some growing to do yet. A week ago they were no bigger than a thumb. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

8 - 750 ml jars of raspberry juice this morning.

[SwampDonkey]

Have picked 4 quarts of blackberries off my little patch this week. Will be making 6 pints of jam tomorrow morning.

[Tom K]

We seem to measure most of our fruit in pounds, and then convert to gallons. Our red raspberries are pretty much played out and the 10 +/- pounds is currently fermenting into a 4 gallon batch of wine. The first peach tree is also played out and cooking into a 5 gallon batch, with another 20-25 pounds waiting.

Blackberries should pretty much finish up this weekend, and the blueberries probably will also. We bag and freeze as we go so wont have weights until they get batched.

[SwampDonkey]

Will be making another 8 jars of raspberry juice later, they are in the freezer. 

Next will be the black elderberries next month. Juice and syrup. I like the syrup on ice cream.

[SwampDonkey]

5 Jars of blackberry jam. I had 8 cups of crushed seedless berries and 9 cups of sugar, how come it don't make 8 pints? Mysteries of cooking. It don't boil that long to loose 3 pints of water. :D Has to be the sugar when changing state, no other explanation.

[21incher]

Could be all the sampling you do :D :D weigh yourself before and after next batch. I'm going to have about 500 pounds of elderberries soon and need a good syrup recipe because I can't afford 500 pounds of sugar and 50 boxes of pectin to make jelly .   

[SwampDonkey]

The key to elderberries is don't cook with the seeds in. I run mine through my food mill with a fine screen after they have been froze and thawed. I freeze as I pick them because they never ripen at once. 500 lbs? You'll need a crew for that job. :D The steam juicer won't have the good pulp to thicken it. I boil the juice/pulp down before adding sugar near the end, a stick of cinnamon and a cap full of lemon juice. I have boiled too far before and made it into jelly when it cooled. :D Takes a lot of berries for 2 pints of syrup I can tell ya that. :D More valuable than maple syrup. :D :D

Guillouard Food Mill

[Chuck White]

SD; This syrup you make, is it a pancake/waffle/ice cream etc. syrup?

The reason I ask is because my brother just planted a dozen Elderberry bushes this past Spring and he's wondering what he's going to do with all the berries!

[SwampDonkey]

You can use it on all that yes. It's a little thicker than maple syrup when I'm done.

When I pick, I bring a lawn chair over under the oak, then I cut the umbels off the bushes. Go over and sit in my comfy chair and pluck berries until the cows come home. Pluck berries, chuck umbels on the ground.  :D

[Chuck White]

That's a new term for me, umbel.

I think it's the stem with lots of little branches with a berry on each.

I'll have to copy your recipe/procedure because I know he's going to have lots of berries either next year or the following year!

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, the things are like weeds once they establish. :D

[thecfarm]

Them things seem to grow on every wet hole around here.
I've picked a lot of those berries.

[SwampDonkey]

The wild ones I get around here are the red ones that you can't eat. Once in a blue moon I will find the black kind on a road berm in the woods. The red ones flower before the snow is gone around here.

[thecfarm]

Did not know there was 2 different kinds.
I have the black ones.

[SwampDonkey]

There is an abandoned Christmas tree plantation up the road and between the rows where there is still sun, mostly at ends of rows now, the red ones have taken over.

[Chuck White]

SD; Do you have the actual syrup recipe written down so that it can be posted here?

[SwampDonkey]

I use the food mill to get the seeds out, once thawed. You don't cook with the seeds in. The process also retains the pulp that will thicken it. I throw that into a pot, add a cinnamon stick and a tablespoon of lemon juice, then boil it down to get some water off it, maybe 1/3 off the original depth. Then add sugar, which is around 2 cups to a gallon of syrup. Boil it further to a syrup consistency, mine is like 'chocolate syrup' thick.

black elder syrup pour - YouTube

[SwampDonkey]

Canned up the rest of the raspberry juice, another 8 - 750 ml jars.

[sawguy21]

Our raspberries are done, we had lots. Now I'm feasting on plums and peaches and I can't get enough. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Been eating Niagara peaches here for 4 weeks. Juice running down your face kind. Not them hard dry things. ;D

[Al_Smith]

Seems to me the squirrels plant nut trees and the birds plant berries and grapes .The front two acres of that woods I bought are  a jungle of vines and canes .In the back three acres  I found a grape vine that has to be 6 inches in diameter .From the ground up a 100 foot white oak . Might be as old as the oak tree for all I know .

[Al_Smith]

There are no peach orchards locally .Those are up north near lake Erie .I bought some that they say are California smooth type with no fuzz .They were not the same as the Lake Erie type .
Musk melon season is just around the  corner  and the best I've found come from Pandora Ohio area .IMO better than Indiana melons .

[21incher]

We are buying the local Freestone peaches finally.  Really  late this year. The local Apple crop is in trouble because  of the late hard freeze  we got so apple prices will be high this year with limited availability. 

[SwampDonkey]

Apples here in the yard did not get good pollination, wet cold June. I'll Only get half a bucket from my little Cortland this year. The New Brunswickers were full of worms and a lot fell premature. I got some yellow transparent locally grown and they are small this year.