Strawberry time

Plant City, Florida strawberries are in season right now, and I came home from errands yesterday with a flat of them.  These are picked ripe, so you don't want to wait more than 24 hours to get them taken care of, whether that's jamming them or eating them.

hulling and cutting up strawberries

a little over half done

that's only 4-1/2 pounds in the smidge-over-2 gallon pot

weighing the strawberries out, one pound at a time

I am curious to see how much I get out of a full flat, as last year I ran short of jam jars and only did 2/3 of the flat ... by the time I had more jars, the strawberries were past the using stage (as in, a fuzzy mush).  So here we go:
9 pounds of strawberries per flat, $10 a flat
15 cups sugar, about 6 pounds
3/4 cup (actually, 7 ounces) lemon juice
3 cups water
No, Mom, I am still not using pectin ... just haven't seen it on sale.  No big deal.  Now it's time for the fun part: boiling it down to gel stage.  I ended up pulling my 22-quart (yes, 5-1/2 gallon!) stockpot so I don't have to worry about it boiling over.

Hubby is out bottle feeding the orphan kids right now - he fully supports me doing up a year's worth of strawberry jam.

Planting again

I guess I just can't help myself.  Along with picking up a couple of seed packets, yesterday I brought home rootstock for a peach tree (Florida King variety, a self-fertilizing and "old time" strain, according to Lynn), two American hazelnut shrubs, and five berry canes: two more raspberry varieties, a boysenberry, a dewberry, and a blackberry.  I also grabbed a 3 pound bag of Russet seed potatoes.

The hazelnuts and the peach tree are in pots next to the front porch, until I figure where they'll be safest and happiest - hazelnuts are apparently attractive to squirrels, turkeys, and deer.  If we need to, hubby can put the doors back on the old chicken coop and we can put them in there to protect from marauding wildlife.