It’s strawberry season, and this has been a great year for strawberry growing. Our little patch is doing well, and we get plenty of small berries from the alpine strawberry plants which are growing all over our garden.
We are lucky to have a couple of berry farms very close to us, so I have been able to buy strawberries for next to nothing. Its got to the point though, where we’ve eaten about as many as we can handle. Ive dehydrated a couple of batches for winter eating. Dehydrated fruit makes great snacks (we also love bircher muesli with home dried strawberries, plums and feijoas in it… yum!), I’ve frozen a few big bags too (these are mostly used for smoothies, and maybe a batch or two of winter strawberry jam).
I made a small batch of strawberry and rhubarb jam a month or so ago, and today I made strawberry and boysenberry jam. I think the pot looked particularly festive…
Carter helped. His job? Official taste tester.
Looks tasty doesn’t it?
Jam making is actually one of my favourite things, it’s so easy and so satisfying. I don’t usually use a recipe, and with berry fruit you don’t need to worry about setting as they have plenty of pectin.
Do you like to preserve?Ā What’s your favourite jam? I think Carter’s favourite is strawberry and boysenberry, since this morning he has had the new jam on a bowlful of homemade yoghurt and two jam sandwiches!
The Green Dragonfly 
YUM!
I can’t decide if strawberry and boysenberry or strawberry and rhubarb sounds best. They both sound amazing!
Nice work. I’ve never made jam before, but really would like to š
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You should give it a try homemade jam is so yummy!!!
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What a sweet photo…Carter looks so full of health and happiness! I do make jam, but my choices are limited to plum, damson and a very experimental apple and blackberry so far. We do have a small strawberry patch but it IS small and the birds seem to enjoy it more than we do! Boysenberries aren’t a common fruit in the UK, so I have never tasted one…they do look good though!.. :)x
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We are still having to share ours with the birds too, they keep getting stuck in under the netting and I have to go and let them out!!
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So sweet!! Look at the big guy š He is enjoying it immensely. Worth all the effort to make it š
Beautiful captures
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What a cutie. Love the photos.
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When I see him like that I just want to kiss the end of that jam covered nose!!!
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Looks like Carter enjoys your jam a lot! Love your photos! I like to make homemade jam too! Mostly strawberry and raspberry. Never tried or seen boysenberry before.
Have a great day! Barbina
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They are just like really big blackberrys, very yummy!!!
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Wonderful photos and I laughed out loud with Carter’s images. I’d love some of that homemade jam! š Great post, Janette!
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Maybe if you get up really close to the screen you could smell it a bit???
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Yum, I’m with you on homemade jam, so smugly satisfying to see all the jars lined up in the cupboard. I make jelly more than jam and my favourite is bramble jelly (blackberries from the hedges) can’t be beaten on toast and reminds me of being a kid.
Tell me, how do you dry your strawberries, sounds like a great idea but haven’t done it before.
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Hi Faith, I have a dehydrator now which is what I use- it is very easy to use and you just put the fruit/veges on trays and it drys a number of layers all at once (I picked it up second hand for $20 so it wasnt a huge outlay) before I had this Id just use the oven on a low heat (about 100). For strawberries I just slice them- you wouldn’t want to do whole ones as they would take days to get to the right texture. I dry mine out until they are leathery but not brittle that way they are still yummy with a good texture to eat!
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mmm .. your pot does look really festive š & your boy is so sweet!!! I’d love to make jam too, but I’d love to have a try at sugar free jam! Maybe that can go on my to do list next year!!!
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Id be interested to hear how that goes, to be fair though I have a sweet tooth and I figure that since I know exactly what goes into my jam its a lesser of two evils!
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Homemade is the best! And it’s fun!
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