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If it is early July, it’s Strawberry season in Maine
Yep…. long time readers will remember this from last year. It is jam-making time! I loved the comment last year when someone told me they almost licked their screen! 
Here is what 45 pounds of strawberries looks like (above). The past two years we have picked our own, but (big surprise!) Paul and I picked 30 of the 38 pounds, while the two boys picked 8 pounds and fussed. Well, Paul’s rotator cuff is torn (surgery in 2 weeks, and not soon enough he ways) so he can’t pick, and he agreed it was unreasonable to expect me to pick that much. Plus, we RAN OUT of 38 pounds worth of jam. OK, 38 pounds minus munchies during creation….. So thanks to Mr. Bellmore at Spears U-pick farm, he set aside four flats for me (the cost is a little more than U-pick…and I think it is worth it!!!!). They were ready Monday. Monday evening I hulled and washed the berries (for hours):
This is what 42 pounds of strawberry hulls looks like:
Then on Tuesday I made jam until I ran out of pectin (we bought more on the way to the Sea Dogs game in Portland). Then I sliced the remaining berries, minus a colander’s worth of really good, ripe ones with stems left on.
Eli, smart lad that he is, remembered when I had made chocolate dipped berries in Friday Harbor (at least 4 years ago…when he was 5!) and suggested we do it again. So we did. Alas, I let the chocolate get too hot, so they weren’t as pretty as they could be, but who cares…they tasted good! Melting the white chocolate chips was not successful, tho.
On Wednesday, I spent the entire day making up the rest of the jam. I use Pomona’s brand Universal Pectin, which is designed to use low sugar or honey. For 40+ pounds of berries, I used less than 15 pounds of sugar! That means my jam tastes like BERRIES, not sugar! The boys love it, and I love that they love it. We ended up with 42 pints, in mostly pint jars (until they ran out when I used half-pint jars, which the boys can vacuum up in a day!!!!!) There are 8 pint jars hidden in this picture, to the left of the microwave and behind the first row….
And to justify all the work, had to add one more photo of Eli surveying a year’s worth of jam: Then I had to box ’em all up and haul them down to storage in the basement. May splurge and (for the first time in 4 years) make raspberry jam later, too! Gonna let Mr. Bellmore pick them, too (well, his farm hands!).
And as an aside…totally cool: Mr. Bellmore rents his farm, for 25+ years, from the Spears family, which has owned the land since 1735 (down in Warren on Route 1, a mile up from the intersection with Route 90). When I asked about the heavenly-scented tree between the house and the farm stand, turns out it was a gift from the US Ambassador to Japan to the family…. in 1865! It isn’t supposed to grow this far north. It is now taller than the 2 story house, and Bellmore has a picture of it beside the house from the late 1800s when it was a bit taller than a man! Way cool! If I get back down there for the raspberries before I head to California, I’ll take a picture of the tree. Mr. Bellmore said he has tried to grow seedlings and cuttings, but they always get killed off, yet the big tree thrives.
July 7th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Wow, that is a lot of jam….. nothing tastes as good as home -made. My mum used to make fantastic jam and marmalade, her favoutites were strawberry, gooseberry and Sevill orange marmalade. I have never made any. Mmmmmmm – maybe I should.
Best wishes
Maggie
July 7th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I love the snapshot.
strawberry hulls
long neck
synthrapol
It all makes the world go ’round, teehee.
I am SO jealous.
July 7th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Maybe I’m just not reading closely enough, but I didn’t see where you identified what kind of tree it was that was planted by the house.
July 8th, 2007 at 11:32 am
That looks so good. Could you share your recipe for the jam? My sister makes a strawberry freezer jam that is so heavenly.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:38 am
That tree that was a gift of the Japanese ambassador — there’s a similar story behind a tree in Port Angeles, Washington. We came across it when visiting in the early 70s, so the tree may no longer be there — it was beside a parking lot, just a big tree looking neglected and forgotten, but somewhere there was a little sign with the story that it had been a gift from an oriental ambassador in the 1890s. It’s a “tree of heaven”, ailanthus. Hope it’s still there — these old trees are so worth preserving.
July 13th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
WOW!! I love strawberries — and this is such a feast. By the way, a quick way to hull them is to use a small melon baller. Much easier than using your thumb or a knife.