I have NEVER made jam or canned anything for the winter. I suppose part of this has to do with growing up in the climate of San Diego, where my family gardened year-round. My Mom did put up jam, though, but I was never interested in the process.
When we moved into our home five years ago, we planted five fruit trees-apple, plum, peach, cherry, and pear. So far, we haven't had much success with the apple, pear and plum (a few pieces of fruit each year). The cherry tree produces each year but the birds get them before we can. The peach tree exploded starting last year! Both years I have had to thin out hundreds of peaches just so the branches can hold what I leave on it, which was well over 100 peaches both years. Then, we have to cover it with nets so the birds don't eat them all. This year, we successfully harvested many peaches, and after eating a lot, I decided to get brave and try to make jam.
At our local Macey's market, I found nice plastic jam containers with freezer jam pectin, and you use a lot less sugar than the liquid pectin. The first ten jars I did took me forever-I carefully peeled each little peach (they are tiny). The next batch I was practiced, and it went much quicker. Wow, I was amazed at how much juice was in those little peaches!! So, I ended up with 20 jars of peach freezer jam, and I must admit it was easier than I thought. I plan on doing it again, maybe I'll get creative next year and try different fruit!
Can someone out there explain to me how to post pictures without them being all lined up?? I'd like to be able to put them in various places in my post, but using blogger's template (or whatever you call it), I can't figure out how to move pictures around. Help??
