BERRY PICKING TIME

 

Well official "berry picking" has come to the north country. This time of year the forest are full of all kinds of berries. It is just amazing all the different berries we have. When you walk into the forest it smells so sweet from all the berries. We pick two kinds of berries to make into jelly and syrup.

 

 

First we pick the wild raspberries. We use to have this wonderful patch by our canoe lakes, but the grasses took over that area and choked out the berries so now we found a new area and whalla.......it is right down the road from us!! Makes it very convenient.

 

Hubby picking raspberries

 

 

 

Sometimes we have to watch out for the moose. Especially if there is a mom and babies. Mom gets very upset if you get close to them and she can stomp you pretty bad. Well we had visitor's this time. Mom wasn't too mad until the baby kept coming towards us then she didn't like that. We had to yell at the baby and wave our arms to get them to move off into the forest which they did.

Visitor's we had while picking berries. This is the baby and Mom is in the background.

 

 

 

The next berries we get are high bush cranberries. We have to drive a few miles to get those, but we make it a day trip so it is always fun. Well as long as it doesn't rain. We have to hike up this trail to get to the cranberry patch and of course watch out for bears. This area is heavily populated with bears so we always have to take our bear spray and gun, but it is still fun. Luckily we have never encounter a bear while picking berries.

 

A lot of the trail is muddy so they have put in these boardwalks which makes it much easier.

 

 

 



 



 

This trail takes you up pretty high and the view is just spectacular.

 

 

 

And here are the results of our picking efforts. :)

 

 

 

 

It is always so much fun to go berry picking. It is a tradition with us and kicks off our fall season. We wish we could find a blueberry patch, but those are harder to find here on the peninsula. We need to go into the Interior to find them. Maybe when we retire we can spend some time doing that. :)

 

 

Hopefully we will get the jelly and syrup made this weekend. Have a three day weekend so maybe we will get time. When we get the cranberries done I will do a post on how to make jelly and syrup so stay tuned. :)

 

 

Thanks for joining me on our berry picking journey. Everyone have a great day!! :)

 

 



RASPBERRY JELLY MAKING TIME!

Normally we make our jellies in the fall, but this year you might recall that we were busy fighting the flood in our basement so the jelly making process was put on hold. Luckily the berries can be frozen so we can make the jelly anytime. We usually pick raspberries and high bush cranberries (also called Moose berries. J), but this year we only had time to pick the raspberries. All the berries we pick are wild berries on the peninsula here. This year was a good year for the raspberries as it was a little warmer with more sun and not tons of rain. Makes a difference in the quality of the berries. Some years the berries are better than others and they have more natural pectin in them so you don’t have to use as much store bought pectin. It is really amazing how the quality affects the jelly.

So here is the process of making homemade raspberry jelly….or at least our process.

 

JAR PREPARATIONS:

You need to sterilize your canning jars, rings and lids. I reuse my canning jars and rings every year, but NEVER reuse the lids. Always buy new lids.  I sterilize them and leave them in the water while I am cooking the jelly.

INGREDIENTS:

Fresh wild raspberries (takes about a 1 gallon freezer bag of berries for 4 cups of juice)

Sugar
Pectin packets (from the grocery store)
Lemon juice
 

You only need the juice from the raspberries so you get this by putting the cold berries in a cheese cloth or berry bags and squeezing the juice into a bowl.

Place 2 small plates in the freezer for testing the jelly later. After you get all the juice out of the berries discard the squeezed berries. Pour 2 cups of berry juice in a stainless steel pan. The stainless steel works the best. Bring this juice to a boil. Then add 2 cups of sugar and dissolve. Add 3 teaspoons of lemon juice and ½ a packet of pectin. This is what you start with….after testing the jelly you may have to add more lemon juice or sugar.

Cook 3-4 minutes while boiling. Now you need to be careful with this step as the jelly juice in the pan when boiling will rise to the top of the pan, so to prevent overflowing I always lift the pan off the heat until it goes back down. After about 3 minutes or so, take the little plate out of the freezer and spoon a tablespoon or so on the plate to test if the jelly will jell ok. After you put the jelly on the plate wait a few moments and then tip the plate and see how the jelly runs down the plate. If it is slow and creeping and seems to be jelling then the jelly is ok….if not and it runs fast you will need to put a little more ingredients in. I start with about ¼ cup of sugar and another teaspoon of lemon juice. After letting it boil a little I test again. You shouldn’t have to add too much to the original ingredients. Just depends on the quality of the berries that year. Once and awhile I have to add a little more pectin if the berries aren’t as high quality that year. You will learn what is best for that year.

 

When the jelly is jelling ok you then take the jars out of the water and ladle the cooked jelly into them. Leave the lids off for several hours for the jelly to “set-up”. When the jelly has set you can put the lids on and tighten them up and put them in storage. Whalla…..you have just made jelly.

 

Sounds pretty easy huh? Well, let me tell you we had quite a learning curve when we first started doing this several years ago. This first year the jelly wouldn’t jell and we kept adding stuff to it and I think we had more sugar than jelly in them. Also after letting it sit for hours to jell in the jars some of the batches didn’t set very good so we had to poor them back into the pan
and add a little more “stuff” to them. J The jelly actually tasted pretty good. So it takes practice. This year the berries were great and I think we have the best jelly we ever have had.

So all of you berry pickers out there…..now you can make jelly! Thanks for joining me in my jelly making process. Hope you enjoyed it.