Berry Pickin

Brad and I went berry picking this morning at Waller Family Farm in Durham (so convenient and close!) and it was a lot of fun. It was a totally unmanned field, you picked the berries you wanted and then weigh and pay on the honor system! We ended up picking 9.5 lbs (5.25 lbs I picked and 4.25 Brad picked) for $14.25! And it took us less than 45 minutes. Shocking...when Brad talked to someone who worked on the farm he directed us to the best places to pick (in the very back of the field) and because it was so early in the day it wasn't terribly hot, so it was quick work.

We took them home and I made a quick "freezer jam" from the recipe in the SureJell box. Freezer jam just means you don't actually seal the jars, it has to be kept cold to stay good. I was in no way prepared to actually "can" the jam (even though I did have all these brand new Ball jars) so this was a good alternative. It was also much easier than I thought. The hardest part was washing the jars and cutting the tops off the berries.

All in all 9.5 lbs of berries resulted in this:

8 jars of jam, some berries just to eat and some for the freezer destined for smoothies. yum....