Can you mail them to me, LOL! How about freezing them and using them throughout the year in cereal, smoothies, waffles, etc. I recently bought some organic strawberries at a reasonable price and sliced and froze them for later use. I planted my first blueberry plant, and have to keep reminding myself to water it because I read one should not let the plant go without water. Hopefully next year I get a few berries.

Definitely freeze those! Ohh so tasty on pancakes, waffles, cobblers Yum! So much you can do with those. Smoothies, cereal, you can make fruit roll-ups with the juice too if you want. :) Enjoy your berries!

~Tina Marie

I did freeze some but broke down and bought canning supplies. I'm attempting to make jam now. Hopefully I won't end up with botulism. lol

You'll do fine, I taught myself how to do that. if I can, You can. Hehe! ;)

~Tina Marie

Four favorites for fresh blackberries after I make my self eating them fresh and in a cobbler

Blackberry and/or blackberry lemon ice cream
Blackberry sorbet
Blackberry and red wine sauce for pork or vension this fall
Blackberry coffee cake

KimKa

Karyn, how did the jam set? :) Hope it turned out wonderful for you!

~Tina Marie

Yes, inquiring minds want to know. How did it work out? ;)

Karyn when you send them to Eloise tell the mail man to stop by my house too, LOL ! I think freezing is a good idea.... if you have space in the freezer :-).
I am making muffins for breakfast and I am using frozen mixed berries when I do not have fresh ones. If you do not like to make jam maybe you start making muffins or pancakes :-).

Pat

YUMMO!!!! I wish I had the stress of wondering what to do with 15lbs of Blackberries..LOL

Kylie

I'm standing in line for a pound or two, overnight them and I"ll reimburse you!

OMG the jam is so yummy. I might just go pick another 15 lb and make more. lol These vines were so loaded with huge berries it only took about 20 minutes to pick several buckets (big) of berries. I can't wait for raspberry season.

My blackberry bush has A blackberry on it. Of course it's only 3 years old. If I didn't like them so much it would be loaded. I think I'll move it to the other house this fall. Maybe that will help.
Oh, My Kelly Ann has something over 50 buds on it and Confusion is blossoming. It sure is named right. Wish me luck. I can hardly wait.
Bill

My buds are dropping like flies. To add insult to injury they're dropping just before they're ready to open : ( It wouldn't be so bad if they'd drop early on. So close yet so far. lol I sing the same tune almost every year. You'd think I'd be used to it already.

now I am drooling....

I made my first batch of strawberry jam on my own last year in the water bath canner. I had helped my grandmother can when I was little but hadn't done anything like that on my own since then lol. It actually came out pretty good. We are still eating it. You can also make freezer jam but that takes up more space in your freezer.
So far this year I made blueberry, apple butter, marmalade, and blackberry.

This summer I got an All American Pressure Canner to more stuff. It is a little addicting and we have so much stuff left over from the garden I might as well do something with it. We have wild blackberries and grapes on the property so its fun to do something with them as well.

I think canning and food preservation is making a comeback! Its a good thing to teach your kids.

I don't make jam anymore since I'm diabetic, unless someone has some good sugarfree or low sugar recipes for me. A neighbor has a beautiful plum tree that has yielded some good jams over the years.
I have a white NOID with 7 buds getting ready to open, she is only 3' tall. I also have flowers and buds on Santa Rosa. The Heloise in my community garden plot put out one bud, and dropped it. I may very well not save that one from frost, or hey, I could give it to the nursery down the street, see if he has any luck with it. Everybody else is waiting for cooler weather I'm afraid, even Cherub.

I was a bit intimidated about canning before I tried it. I vaguely remember my Mom trying to make brandied peaches and ending up with a houseful of fruit flies. Maybe that's why I never tried. lol I think I'll try putting up some of the extra veggies from the farm and definitely some more fruit. I don't have any special kind of pot. I'm just using my giant crab pot. I can fit several jelly jars in and it's deep enough.

Yay Karyn! So glad it turned out good for you. :) I knew it would. Since I hit the store without any knowledge, bought my equipment and book then taught myself without any help at all. Hehe! I knew if I could do it, you could do it.

I love blackberry, blueberry and raspberry jams. Hubby prefers the strawberry stuff with big chunks. Bleh! Now homemade strawberry may be a different story. I'll have to try it. I never preferred it from the store though.

Tommysmommy, I'll try and see if I can find some for you, being diabetic. I need to anyway, hubby is hyperglycemic(sp?) So I should do that anyway. Eventually he will become diabetic. Dr. says that will happen.

~Tina Marie

P.S. Sorry to hear about the buds on all your blooms guys! I was so looking forward to oogling them! lol

Tommysmommy could you eat jam/jelly w/o added sugar? Is it possible to just use overripe fruit like peaches that are super sweet and add pectin w/o the sugar or does the pectin require sugar to set? What about pectin free jams?

On the Blue Ball canning site there are some recipes for low sugar or no sugar jam/jellies. The website link is at the bottom of the page, then scroll down and some of the recipes will state no or low sugar there is 3 pages. The newer Blue Ball books have good recipes for low or no sugar as well.

The website Pick Your Own has a good page about sugars in canning. It says all fruit can be safely canned without sugar. It goes on to explain how to get the best quality jelly from fruits not using sugar etc. I really think my strawberry jam was good but was way too sweet. I might try some of these lower sugar recipes too.
http://pickyourown.org/canning_without_sugar.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: blue ball

Wow, you guys are getting me excited about canning, although I don't have any fruit to can, LOL! My Anna apple tree this year is the pits, but in the past I've frozen lots of applesauce.

Karyn, been wanting to ask, where did you picked all those blackberries, was it in your own yard? If so, I am so jealous!

Lenette, your strawberry jam sounds great! The most I do is slice the strawberries and freeze them for later use. Of course, that's only when I find some reasonably priced organic strawberries. I've given up using the amount of sugar given on any recipe because I find it's always too much. Trying now to grow a few more plants, but the heat is really doing a number on them so only get a couple of fruit every once in a while.

Hi Eloise,
Here is a link to find a pick your own farm near you. You can usually get fruit and veggies pretty cheap if you pick it yourself lol.
You can also try your local farmer's markets they are usually much cheaper than the produce at the grocery store, so it might be worth canning. I got a bunch of lychees very cheap a few months ago at one near us. I didn't think to make anything with them. Maybe I could find a lychee jelly recipe lol.

I had a bunch of nice purple figs ripening on the tree until the turkeys found them grrrr. I was hoping to make fig jam.

Here is a link that might be useful: Find a farm near you

I can't take the credit for growing the blackberries. I picked them at a local farm. Where I live is surrounded by orchards and farms. I don't grow much in the way of edibles here. Just some figs, alpine strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Unfortunately I'm in competition with all the woodland critters for the ripe fruit. We grow some veggies at the farm.

Speaking of fruit I'm so excited. My quenepas arrived yesterday. I stumbled across this fruit a couple years ago and it's pretty much impossible to find here. I ordered these from Puerto Rico. It's kind of like a cross between a mango and a lychee, odd but sooo good. It goes by several different names depending on where you are, quenepa, Spanish lime, mamon, mamoncillo and guinep.

Here is a link that might be useful: quenepa

Ny blackberries dried up in the heat this year. Lucky you!

Try xylitol for sweetening--expensive, but doesn't metabolize with insulin & not a synthetic.

My brother is making jams and using xylitol. Xylitol tastes good as a sweetener but it gives me *ahem* intestinal distress, so I stay away from it. I find the jams on the market sweetened with splenda are somehow lacking, so I don't know what the solution is. Of course I could just eat regular jam and limit myself to small amounts every now and then. I have a new recipe for you all tho if anyone else besides me has out of control mint at their garden plot. Google Mint Granita, go to the epicurious site. It's delicious! I made it last night for company and we all swooned!!

Thanks for the link Lenette. The problem I am having is trusting any place. A while ago, news was that a company that sends people to farmers markets around here were selling "organic and locally grown" produce/fruits. It turned out their produces was not organic and was being brought in from Mexico! Went to a farm nearby with my gd's school and we picked strawberries. I am looking for organic produce/fruits only, but the term being used by most farms closeby is "Uses natural growing practices," which I don't trust.

OT, but still valid. Did you all recently see online, because the media didn't really do a good job of covering, where the feds, sheriffs totally destroyed a clubs organic and raw milk products, and called it "conspiracy"? Just makes me sick.

Boy, what an energetic crew here. My contribution is just mashing up the strawberries each year for DW's freezer jam then making sure I get through it all before its time for next year's crop - oh, the sacrifices I make. LOL.

Once more a post brings back memories. Growing up in Mississippi blackberry picking was an annual adventure with Mama if we wanted jam til next year. Those thickets seemed to be 10' tall though I was somewhat shorter then. Mama made us all carry a long stick to 'rattle around' in the bushes before we waded in to alert the slithery critters we were coming (Berries>birds>snakes). I remember her saying just rattle your stick and givem a few minutes to vacate and you'll be OK.......but when I got an answering rattle back those berries were safe no matter how she encouraged us!
Will