another strawberry post
I was going to call this post "ripe strawberries ripe", because really, when you want to write about strawberries what choice do you have?! But the autocomplete tells me I already wrote that post sometime last year. So no clever title; I'm too tired to think of another alternative after all the hard strawberry work I put in today.
First, I drove practically to New Hampshire to lovely Parlee Farm, where I picked eight quarts of oh-so-ripe strawberries. Then Leah and I turned two of those quarts into jam (it comes out to two and a half quarts of jam, if you're counting at home). What are we planning to do with the remaining berries? I don't know, do you want any? Act now, due to their advanced state of ripeness they won't be around long! Next year I think I'll do this picking thing a little early in the season. But we must have the jam, and lots of it! Last year I finished the few jars I managed to make before summer was even over, which is kind of not the point.
What about our own strawberry plants, you may be wondering? Don't worry, they produced fine. In fact, I think we got four or five quarts all told, if not more, which at market prices is a value of about $30, so we're doing alright for that initial five dollar investment. The only problem with what we picked at home is that all those berries either got eaten right away or went bad in a similarly short time-frame. So none were preserved in any fashion. Next year, though! Although right now I'd be happy not to see another strawberry for a little while.