{Dewberries}

The dewberries are ripe and when the dewberries are ripe, you just have to rearrange your priorities and put picking berries at the top of the list. So far, we’ve picked about 6 gallons of berries. About half of that has been on our property. The berries are pretty small due to our drought conditions but they are very flavorful.

Don’t let this fool you! Esther has eaten way more than she has picked – like 1/2 gallon when Phoebe and Gabriel weren’t looking!

We had 9 quarts of cobbler filling left from last year and 10 pints of jam. I’m not sure how much we picked or canned last year since my gardening notebook is no longer, but it was nice to have some left over since the harvest is not so good this year. Not only did we have cobbler and jam all year but we gave about 20 pints of jam as Christmas gifts.

The rest that we pick as they ripen on on property will be frozen. There are some that are dried out already and we are picking those for hot tea. yummm….

For the jam, we don’t use pectin. We just smash the berries with a bean masher and sweeten them. For 24 cups of smashed berries I used 4 cups of sugar (we don’t like it real sweet so feel free to add more sugar to yours). Heat the berries and sugar to a boil and then can as usual with a 20 minute water bath. We made 13 pints.

For the cobbler filling,  we just add sugar and water – 1 cup of each per gallon of berries – and then heat them to a boil and can them as usual. We made 6 quarts.

I use old bands to do the waterbath and then take them off before storing the jars in the pantry. For gift giving I put on brand new bands.

The beginnings of Stuffed French Toast

Enjoy!

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Thanks for sharing with your friends!