I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!My mother just called and she picked up 60 pounds of strawberries from the strawberry farm for $72. Did I want half like last year. Why yes, I do. She even cut them up, sugared them and put them in quart size Ziploc bags and has them waiting in her freezer. She's also giving me a quart size jar full of the excess juice so I can make frozen juice bars out of them. I make it in layers, freezing some strawberry juice, than freezing some leftover pineappl juice, and making stripes. The kids love these! So that is 30 pounds of strawberries and at least 12 frozen juice bars for $36 and the berries usually lasts us a year.
After that phone call I went on out to the garden and picked my first quart of raspberries for the season and there will need to be another picking done in 2 days and again in 4 days. This is the most these have produced, they are about five years old.
While I was out there I noticed six strawberries hanging forlornly in their bed, so picked those and then went to check on the Saskatoons and they should be ripe any day now.
Checked on the bush cherries and despite having bloomed prolifically they have not produced. They are only 2 years old, though. Maybe next year. I've got five cherries on my cherry tree that are up way too high to pick. My pears are coming along nicely though.
Then Mom called me again to say there were some ripe berries on her blueberry trees (not bushes, these things are 7 feet tall), about a quarts worth so I could pick those tomorrow when I come in to drop off the kids. I usually get several gallons of blueberries over the course of the season, but its always fun to get the first ones.
I'm going to drive by where the farm stand is and see if they have any more cherries available. The season is so short and the 15 pounds for $15 was finished a week ago. We love eating them fresh, but I read a thing recently that said you could pit them and freeze them, so I may try that. Mom has a cherry pitter if she can find it.
Buried in Berries
July 14th, 2006 at 02:52 am
July 14th, 2006 at 05:00 am 1152853200
If you can't find your cherry pitter, I've used an opened up large size paperclip pretty successfully. Just save one of the bends to the clip, sort of unfolding it at the half way point. Then, insert the bend into the cherry, it just holds the pit and will pull it right out. It's almost as fast as my pitter & sometimes is faster depending on which kid is working the pitter!
July 14th, 2006 at 12:41 pm 1152880886
I so want to plant some but I am afraid of the startup cost (I have a brown thumb, so success is not likely)
July 14th, 2006 at 09:18 pm 1152911910
Still working on the coupon train...only two go through WA right now, and the latest one is on it's first run. Hang in there, you're on my list
July 15th, 2006 at 03:34 am 1152934446
And yeah, the bush cherries are supposed to be self pollinating, I think it is just that they are young. I'm going to plant another variety next spring near them that do need a pollinator and who knows, maybe they were mismarked or something.