Early July | Practical Self Reliance
Summer Berries, Canning Recipes & Freeze Drying
Early July is when we see our first real season of abundance here on our land. I’m not talking about buckets of zucchini and heirloom tomatoes, those are still months off. I know you’ve all been buried in them for quite a while now, but for us, they’re literally months away…at least in any meaningful quantity.
I can only imagine how those first few spring greens looked to settlers of this northern climate when they finally arrived in earnest sometime around mid-May. I’ve written about Marsh Marigold, one of the very first spring greens…coming up as early as March, and how these days it’s considered more of a novelty by foragers and paid little heed.
Imagine if you’d eaten nothing but salt pork and stored cabbage for the past 6 months. It’d be a lot more than a novelty, that’s for sure.
But early July, that’s when the real treasures roll in. Early spring bitter greens have already cleansed our systems, and we’ve washed out all the heavy foods of winter.
Now it’s the sweet part of the year.
Fourth of July weekend is when the berry picking baskets come out, and we’ll see our first raspberries, black raspberries, pie cherries, gooseberries, saskatoons, and currants.
Honeyberries arrive in Early June, and they’re a fresh, delicious novelty to palates starved for fresh fruit. It’s a good thing they’re gone now, as those short lived tart berries would be ignored in all this abundance.
Strawberries help bridge the gap too, but their season is painfully short. The first fruits ripen right around the summer solstice, and they’re almost gone by now. Just a mere 2 to 3 weeks to put them up until the next year.
We’ve planted everbearing strawberries to keep the crops coming in, and this year we also added a lot of alpine strawberries. The alpines put out a small crop alongside the other strawberries, but they’re flowering heavily right now, much to my surprise. We’re expecting a heavy crop of them mid-summer if all goes according to plan.
They come in both classic red alpines, and white alpines which have a really unique flavor…and confuse the birds. Birds only pick off red strawberries, you see, they’ll not bother with a strawberry that doesn’t turn red.
Saskatoons are another supposedly “early” berry, and while they do ripen before our earliest blueberries, they’re not really that “early” here in the north. Some people call them “juneberries” as they ripen in June across the Prarie states, but here they’ll ripen the very last week of June and hit peak right around the 4th of July.
The “early” part is really their flowers, which are some of the first blooms each spring. They go by the name “serviceberries” too, from back in the day when their blooms meant that the soil was no longer frozen…and you could hold funeral services for all those that died this past winter.
(Bet you never thought of that…how do you bury people when the soil’s frozen 4 feet deep…and you don’t have heavy machinery? These days, they bring out massive propane-powered flame cars that park over a gravesite and blast it with flame until the soil melts. Back in the day, they just waited.)
With all this fruit, our canning kitchen is going into overdrive (again). I actually started to worry that my canning recipes are completely taking over Practical Self Reliance, and in order to keep a bit of balance, I decided to start a whole new canning recipe site.
Creative Canning now has around 20 recipes posted, and I hope to share even more canning recipes with you there. That way, I can still talk about foraging, gardening, alternative energy, and all the other fun stuff on Practical Self Reliance…without just becoming that crazy jam lady.
(Even if I really am a crazy jam lady at heart.)
If you are on social media, you can follow my new site on facebook and instagram.
I hope to make it a good balance of pantry-filling meal in a jar canning recipes, like pressure-canned Boston baked beans and pressure-canned chicken, as well as fun and beginner-friendly recipes for jams, jellies, juices, fruits, and pickles.
This past week, we also finally got a home freeze dryer. I say finally, because I’ve been researching the best models and making space in our house for years now…and also because they’re booking 6 to 8 weeks out on deliveries.
We put up a lot of food each year, but we still buy a good bit of freeze-dried food, both for convenience and because it makes such a good emergency food.
My kids also particularly love freeze-dried fruit, and it’s an extra special treat for them.
Having our own freeze dryer will mean we can make our own, at about 1/10th the cost, since we’re growing the produce ourselves.
I also hope to document the whole process on the blog, as buying a freeze dryer isn’t all that straightforward. What type of power do you need? Can you run one off-grid? Which pump should you get? Are they noisy? How long does it take to dry? What CANT you freeze dry?
The list of questions stretches on and on….and there aren’t that many good answers on the internet. Yet.
I hope to remedy that.
Why did we take the plunge now?
We bought one from Harvest Right (affiliate link) because they’ve yet to raise their prices. Freeze dryers are expensive, but with inflation, I can only imagine they’ll get a lot more expensive right alongside food, cars, and everything else.
We thought it better to invest our money in a durable good that will help keep us fed for years to come…and before they inevitably raise their prices to keep up with the rising cost of everything.
I’ll definitely keep y’all updated on how it goes, along with all the mishaps (I mean “learning experiences”) along the way.
If you have questions about freeze-drying, please do let me know so I can make sure to take good notes as we test out ours.
Also, if you’d like to request a specific canning recipe on Creative Canning, please do leave me a comment so I can get back to you. I spent a long time finding the perfect apricot jam recipe, and if there’s interest, I’d be happy to help you find the perfect canning recipe you’re searching for.
Leave me a comment with the button below and I’ll be sure to get back to you.
Until Next Time,
~ Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
I have a harvest right freeze dryer and it was the best investment I ever made. Let me know how you like yours :)
Does anyone know how the power consumption of freeze-drying (per pound of some particular food, say) compares over say, six months with the power consumption of a freezer? I've had skeptics tell me "Oh, freeze-drying consumes a massive amount of energy" but can't pin anything down so far. Thinking a community freeze-drying facility might be a good idea, but not without this info!