Wild Blackberry picking time whether your planning on just fresh eating, freezing berries for later use or making jams, jellies, pies or ice cream starts here in the month of July. It’s usually hot and can make for some very uncomfortable picking if you go out in the heat of the day. So we usually head out early morning or late evening due to the fact that you need to layer clothing on. No shorts, sandals, or short sleeved shirts allowed. Its a bloody ordeal to pick them because of the wicked thorns, so you need to dress accordingly. Jeans are best because of them being a heavier fabric, long sleeved shirt over another shirt, high rubber boots to protect from chiggers and snakes, a hat and bug spray if you use that (we don’t). And you need at least one heavy glove on to grab the branches as you pick with the other hand. Then of course you need a bucket either in your gloved hand or strapped to your waist.
We have 3 large patches that expand each year in our front property where it use to be just pasture land for haying. After about 4 years of no haying, cedar trees and other trees started coming back. Then about 2 years ago I happened to notice some bushes in bloom and we discovered blackberries had come back . And since then we discovered more patches. We average around 7 quarts per picking. I lost track of how many quarts I froze up this year. Somewhere between 40 -60 quarts I think. I took what we still had in the freezer from last years and made Wild Blackberry Honey Jam this summer of which I am sharing with you today.
A plate of some of the largest and juiciest blackberries from one of our pickings this summer.
This year I switched over to Pomona’s Universal Pectin as seen in the photo above. It can be found at most Natural Food Stores and at Amazon. com. My main reason for switching was to get away from the common pectin’s available and use a pectin that works well with many different sweeteners and allows you to reduce how much you use with out compromising taste. Pomona does just that and works very well with honey. Diana of “A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa” who is one of my co hosts for this blog hop has a wonderful tutorial about using Pomona’s pectin here. She is also one of my favorite bloggers. Pomona’s Pectin is so versatile I’ll never use any other.
The recipe I used was done by following the sheet in the box of Pomona’s under Jams for sour blackberry amounts.
Ahead of time prepare your jars. Either by the old method to sterilize the jars dipping into boiling water or the easiest method that I’ve used for years now using the dishwasher. Just load up the dishwasher, put cleaner in, set for the longest wash or sani wash / temp and heat dry. Leave the dishwasher door closed to hold the heat until your ready to start filling your jars. Put your jar rings into a pan with water and bring to a boil and turn off. The lids into another pan with water and bring to a boil and turn off. Put cover on both of these to keep them hot until your ready to cap your jars.
WILD BLACKBERRY HONEY JAM
For 9 pints
16 cups of berries
2-4 cups of honey
( I used 3 cups honey)
1 pkt. pomona’s pectin powder
1/2 cup calcium powder water
(this is 1/2 c. water with the calcium powder pkt. stirred in)
Step 1: Measured berries out into large stock pot.
Then crushed with a potato masher to break up and expose juice.
Step 2: Stir in the calcium water.
** Note – that the calcium powder comes in the box of pectin.
Step 3: Measure out the honey into a separate bowl.
Stir in the pectin powder and set aside.
Step 4: Bring the fruit / juice to a boil. Now stir in the honey pectin mix.
Stirring vigorously for 2 minutes while the pectin dissolves into the fruit.
Remove the spoon and let it all come back to a boil, then remove from the heat.
Step 5: Fill the jars to 1/4 inch from the top.
Wipe the lip clean.
Put the hot lid on using a tong to grab, then screw on a ring very tightly.
Step 6: Last step is to seal with a water bath for 10 minutes.
Though I do not do this step at all. Because you are filling your sterilized hot jars with boiling fruit, capping with boiled hot lids and rings and you have tighten them well; the combination of doing these steps carefully will result in your jars sealing with a nice clink sound as they cool down. I’ve never had trouble with doing it this way.
I put up 36 pints of Wild Blackberry Honey Jam this summer and the taste and texture is wonderful.
Honey gives it a nice subtle sweetness. Later I made jelly by following the directions in Pomona’s Pectin using our wild mulberries harvested this past early June from trees on our property. Jelly uses more pectin but the results were equally as good as the blackberries. Mulberries also are full of the tiniest of seeds and stems and I put them through my Champion juicer to squeeze out the highest amount of juice for the jelly. Our property is 100% free of pesticides / herbicides / insecticides so all berries are safe for healthy consumption.
This post is a part of the “Nourishing Jams, Jellies, Preserves and More” Blog Hop.
Hosted by myself, Wardeh Harmon and Diana Bauman.
Thank you for stopping by and reading about my summer sweet preserving. Please take the time to read all the other wonderful posts shared HERE and glean recipes and helpful hints that may be just what your looking for use in the future. This Blog Hop is running for 1 whole week August 27 – September 2. So if you haven’t done so yet read up about it over at the previous link and join the fun. You don’t have to be a blogger to participate!
Seeds of the Word:
” I have set the LORD always before me; Because HE is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Psalms 16: 8, 9, 11
