Larriland Farm

Berry-Pickin' Hands

Our 3-year-old showing off the effects of a good hour of berry picking.

Thanks to a tip-off from our neighbor, last Saturday we drove 25 minutes to Larriland Farm in Woodbine, MD for the very first day of blueberry season. Woohoo! Now, I'm not a big fan of eating blueberries raw, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some canning adventures!

Larriland Farm is a pick-your-own style farm and the prices can't be beat at the store. When we went, blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, strawberries (slim pickings), cherries, and beets were all available to pick. We opted for blueberries, some strawberries for eating, and I wanted a go at the black raspberries. We had psyched our 3-year-old son up for picking blueberries, but after 30 minutes he was done. :-) He attempted to pick a few black raspberries, but the thorns were quite the deterrent, especially after a few pricks. Poor kid. It was hot work, but we came home with spoils of 6 lbs. of blueberries and enough black raspberries for a small batch of jam.

So, today I processed one batch each of Blueberry-Lime Jam and Old-Fashioned Black Raspberry Jam. I am really excited for them to cool down so I can slather some on a slice of bread! The blueberry jam is this gorgeous deep purple and the raspberry jam is a red so deep it's almost black. Hence the name, I suppose! I've never had good success with the old-fashioned style jam where no pectin is added, but you just boil it for a longer period of time. I'm sure hoping I didn't end up with raspberry candy in a jar! (I've had that unfortunately happen to me with grapefruit marmalade...)

I still have a lot of blueberries left. Maybe some more of that jam? Or maybe I have enough for pie filling? Hmmm.... I think I might just end up freezing them until I can figure out what I want to do.

I am completely thrilled to have such an awesome resource so close! I really want to go back to the farm for more raspberries and some beets. I love making pickled beets. They're so pretty!