ButterflyLady29
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Location: central Ohio

Finally done with jelly!

I started cleaning out the freezer a few weeks ago. There was so much fruit that I had planned on making jelly with and I needed the room for ground beef. So today I made the last of the black raspberry juice into jelly. It still needs to be processed but the hard work of standing and stirring is finally finished! There are still some cherries and blueberries in there but those aren't yet slated for jelly making. I did blackberry/currant, grape with Niagara grapes, cherry, blueberry and just now the black raspberry. I am not really much of a jelly/jam fan. I still have violet jam from 10 years ago in the freezer. But hubby likes jelly and toast and usually buys a bunch of it every summer.

Actually this stuff has tasted very good. The grape and blackberry currant are just amazingly wonderful. So who knows, I may decide to eat crescent rolls and jelly again. Now if I could learn how to make crescent rolls that taste better than the refrigerated Pillsbury ones.

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

I love jelly making! I always end up making more than I know what to do with. Some of it goes in the Christmas baskets, etc.

Every year I make purple basil jelly, green basil jelly, sage-blackberry jam and then some selection of flower jellies: redbud flower, wisteria flower, lavender blossom, etc. Any edible flower can be made into jelly and the process is the same, just start by making a flower infusion and then strain the flower petals out and make the jelly from the infusion.

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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

I use to make a lot of Blackberry and Black Raspberry jelly but not so much these days. I have plants in my back yard that are wild Raspberry plants very common to the south/east part of the US. These are very large berries the size of a quarter, berries are so large I have no trouble picking 5 gallons in about 1 hour. 7 gallons of berries makes 5 gallons of juice. I made 6 jars of Raspberry JAM about 10 years ago and still have 1 jar left. I made 56 bottles of Black Raspberry Wine and 55 bottles of Blackberry wine 7 years ago we drank the last bottle a few months ago. Blackberry and Raspberry wine both need to age about 4 years to be good. I sold my freezer 40 years ago things use to get lost in there.

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ButterflyLady29
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Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

I've got wild black raspberries. Berries aren't very big and are terribly seedy. I can't stand getting those seeds stuck in the grooves in my molars so I don't eat very many of those. The blackberries are either Arapaho or Ouachita, can't remember for sure, and Triple Crown. The Triple Crown are pretty sweet but the others have a bit of an astringent aftertaste. Bleh. I'll eat jelly mixed in with oatmeal or cream of wheat but grape flavored oatmeal is, in my opinion, yuck!

I've still got several jars of grape/currant syrup from last year. It wasn't meant to be syrup but it was my first time making jelly and I followed the wrong set of instructions. It's okay in green tea but not wonderful.

I planted a bunch more grape vines and plan on improving and expanding the bramble patches. I don't know if I'll try selling finished jelly or go back to making bread and eating it ourselves.

Nice job on the wine. That takes a lot of time, patience and know-how.

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Gary350
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

The name of my Raspberry plants are, Cumberland Black Raspberry. 1st year canes make no berries, 2nd year canes make large quarter size berries, 3rd year canes die. Roots send up lots of new canes all the time, let them spread mow around them with the law mower to keep them contained. I let my patch get 6 ft wide 25 ft long. If you pick EVERY ripe berry they will make berries until November but if you miss 1 ripe berry that triggers the plant to stop making berries. These plants have very large thorns.



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