This week we took some time to can the dewberries we picked last month. We picked about 23 pounds of dewberries and put them in the freezer. We’ve eaten some frozen and some in smoothies so we no longer have 23 pounds.
But we had enough left to make 25 pints of jam. We canned 30 half pints to use as gifts and 10 pints for our family’s use. We still have a few quarts of cobbler filling left from a couple of years ago so I think we’ll have plenty for us.
I really don’t follow any recipe for making jam. And I really like making jam better than jelly because you don’t need to use as much sugar to make it gel.
I put the fruit in the pan and use an immersion blender to blend it up.
Then I add sugar to sweeten it just a little. I used a 12 quart pot to make this jam and only used 5 cups of sugar.
While the jam is coming to a boil over medium heat, I go ahead and get my jars ready. I bring them to a boil in water with just a little splash of white vinegar (this helps keep your jars pretty if you have hard water).
When they are done I pour some of this water over the lids to heat them up. You want your lids to be in very hot water but don’t boil them or you might mess up the rubber ring.
Fill the jars with the hot jam, put the lids and bands on them and boil them for 10 minutes for half pints.
This post is shared at Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Mostly Homemade, Natural Living Monday, Barn Hop, Homestead Bloggers Tasty Tuesday, Backyard Farming Blog Hop, Beauty and Bedlam, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Raising Homemakers, Simple Living Wednesday, Simple Living Wednesday, The Self-Sufficient HomeAcre Hop, Home and Garden Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, From the Farm, Little House in the Suburbs,
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Oh, yummy! Homemade jam sounds delicious and the jars look so pretty lined up like that.
Thanks, Rachel. I’m having a hard time keeping my kids out of them.
Thanks so much! We shared this with our readers at homesteadlady.com…
Thanks, Tessa, I appreciate that.
This looks so yummy! We don’t have dewberries, but I just found a mulberry tree; maybe I’ll try jam with those!
I think mulberry jam would be nice, too.
Dropping by from the Backyard Farming Connection. I’ve never heard of dewberries. The jam looks delicious. Last year I made a ton of plum jam concoctions from our plum tree. Sadly this year we won’t have any plum due to a late April super freeze (6 degrees!). I”m glad I made many jars last year and didn’t many away.
Dewberries are just our local wild blackberries. There smaller than cultivated blackberries. I’m sorry about the plums. We had a crazy freeze here and although it got just below freezing it killed a lot of my green beans. Hopefully next year you’ll have a bumper crop.
I have relish sitting and soaking right now, I’m going to can it this morning. Last weekend was the first of the tomatoes and pickles for the season.
My name is Katie and I host Inspired Weekends, open from Thursday to Thursday. I would love to have you link up!
Thanks for visiting, Katie. I’ll have to check out Inspired Weekends.
I usually just do tomatoes but was planning on trying my hand at some jam this year! 🙂
I think jam is easier than tomatoes. I think you’ll like it.
Love jamming! Yours looks marvelous! A wonderful, informative post! So delighted you shared with Home and Garden Thursday,
Kathy
We do a lot of canning. My husband got me a pressure canner this past year and we started doing meat and vegetables. We go through a lot of canned chili and I would like to do some chili beans. I love canning jam! It makes nice Christmas gifts when I need something at the last minute.
Thanks again for linking up to our HomeAcre Hop. 🙂
That’s why I can so much jam. We give it to all my kids Awana teachers, dance teachers, youth workers, etc. It’s so appreciated and it’s one less thing I have to worry about during the busy season. I recently canned dried beans and they were really easy. Thanks for stopping by.