A week or so in harvesting
Jun. 30th, 2014 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidA week ago Sunday, I joined LUrC harvest of cherries a couple of blocks from my house. We picked 39 pounds, of which I ended up with almost 10 pounds to bring home, plus some stalks of rhubarb because the owners were growing rhubarb and offered it. Yay, rhubarb!
Sunday night and Monday included about two and a half hours of cherry pitting before I was able to start canning. At that point I wasn't interested in chopping them up further, as would be good for jam, so started them with some sugar, then added some cocoa powder, and later some vanilla extract, for seven pints of cherries in chocolate sauce (sort of). Two pints went back to the tree owner.
Chef Google had let me know that there are uses for cherry pits, other than just composting, so I've started infusing vinegar with the pits. The experiment is still in progress, so no data yet.
Last Tuesday, I did a fruit-scouting walk for LUrC, checking on the progress of a sour cherry tree, and finding a number of other fruit trees around. I picked a bunch of juneberries from the tree by my house and a few down the street, and canned two and a half pints of juneberry-rhubarb jam.
Thursday was the cherry tree harvest. We lacked ladders and a hanging scale, so we harvested the lower half of the tree, and got a guesstimate of 16 pounds, of which I got four-ish. Friday I pitted them (much easier for sour cherries!), and canned most of them (a few went into a fried-rice dish with horseradish greens I'd picked at the garden), making a pint of sour cherries in their own juice. Also, another batch of cherry pits in vinegar, to compare sour and sweet cherries.
Sunday, I picked mulberries and canned them. I was lazy, not picking out all the little green stems (I eat them when fresh, so why not?), and had enough for two half-pints, plus more for snacking.
Today, I got permission from a near neighbor to pick some sweet cherries, so I see more pitting in my future. I got some more rhubarb yesterday at the garden, so I might make cherry-rhubarb jam, or I might freeze some for later.
Sunday night and Monday included about two and a half hours of cherry pitting before I was able to start canning. At that point I wasn't interested in chopping them up further, as would be good for jam, so started them with some sugar, then added some cocoa powder, and later some vanilla extract, for seven pints of cherries in chocolate sauce (sort of). Two pints went back to the tree owner.
Chef Google had let me know that there are uses for cherry pits, other than just composting, so I've started infusing vinegar with the pits. The experiment is still in progress, so no data yet.
Last Tuesday, I did a fruit-scouting walk for LUrC, checking on the progress of a sour cherry tree, and finding a number of other fruit trees around. I picked a bunch of juneberries from the tree by my house and a few down the street, and canned two and a half pints of juneberry-rhubarb jam.
Thursday was the cherry tree harvest. We lacked ladders and a hanging scale, so we harvested the lower half of the tree, and got a guesstimate of 16 pounds, of which I got four-ish. Friday I pitted them (much easier for sour cherries!), and canned most of them (a few went into a fried-rice dish with horseradish greens I'd picked at the garden), making a pint of sour cherries in their own juice. Also, another batch of cherry pits in vinegar, to compare sour and sweet cherries.
Sunday, I picked mulberries and canned them. I was lazy, not picking out all the little green stems (I eat them when fresh, so why not?), and had enough for two half-pints, plus more for snacking.
Today, I got permission from a near neighbor to pick some sweet cherries, so I see more pitting in my future. I got some more rhubarb yesterday at the garden, so I might make cherry-rhubarb jam, or I might freeze some for later.