Full Strawberry Moon

Every full moon of the year, in the Native American culture, has a name. June's is Full Strawberry Moon.  It is very aptly named.

Every year, around the first of June, the strawberries start ripening and by the middle of the month, I am more than ready for them to be done.  I love strawberries - there probably isn't a recipe that calls for strawberries that I don't like, but my favorite way to eat them is sun-warmed straight off the vine.

When we first moved onto the farm I found five strawberry plants huddled beneath the leaves of the rhubarb plant.  I moved them into the southeast corner of the garden so I could know where they were and not inadvertently dig them up.  I didn't expect much from five little scrub strawberry plants, but since that day they have been quietly attempting to take over the entire garden.  They and their offspring now take up one entire corner of the garden. 

That first year on the farm, since I had moved them, they didn't produce much at all.  The following year, I would get about one cup per day throughout the month, and so on until last night, as I stood amid the multitudes of strawberry plants watching the sun set in the sky and wondering if I would ever be able to stand upright again from picking for so long, I realized that I had easily picked a quart and a half of strawberries, and that same amount (or more) is on deck to be ripe tonight.

I didn't grow up in a family that stored food - my grandma would make jellies and jams in the summer to give as presents, but I never really took part in that endeavor other than to be the happy recipient of those jellies.  The whole canning thing, quite honestly, scared me.  I always had visions of somehow poisoning someone with a bad batch.  Visions of the evening news with a story of a family poisoned with botulism always made me cringe and shy away from anything to do with canning.  But, oh, those strawberries! I hated seeing them go to waste!  We could never eat all of them fast enough and, as good as they are, there are only so many different desserts containing strawberries and that you can make and consume fast enough.

Then,.... my inspiration.  You always find it in unusual places.  I went to visit some relatives and there,  placed on the table at dinner to be spread on the bread, was a small jar of strawberry jam that had been pulled from the freezer.  Freezer jam! It was amazing and I was immediately hooked - no boiling water canner needed, no scary thoughts of cooking it incorrectly and thereby poisoning my entire family!  When the producer of the jam was tracked down for the recipe, she said, "oh, I just follow the directions on the Sure Jell box."

I tracked down this mythical box in the grocery store, found among the canning lids and jars and other various supplies and purchased just one box to start.  The directions took a little getting used to, but eventually I had deciphered them enough to attempt my first batch of freezer jam.  Sugar , pectin, water, crushed strawberries, and a little time and I found myself the proud producer of 5 cups of strawberry freezer jam which, when opened in the deep dark days of January, just about make you cry with the delicious taste of fresh strawberries.

 Our production in the last several years has, along with the amount of strawberries, ramped up.  We no longer make it by the cup - we now make it in pint jars because we discovered that five kids all eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all year go through a lot of jelly very quickly.   After I had made strawberry jelly, I became braver and suddenly the peaches on the peach tree seemed like a good thing to try in a jam....I actually made some regular jam - the type you have to hot water can because peaches don't do as well as a freezer jam.  After that, the canning flood gates opened and suddenly everything seemed to have a method of preservation that could be handled with a few glass jars, lids and a big kettle.

Is it time consuming? - yep. Is it sometimes very messy? - yep. Doesn't it make the house really hot, standing over a hot stove in the middle of June, July and August? - yes.  Is it really all worth it?  - Absolutely!  I know that it would be very easy to go to a grocery store and pick up a jar of jelly, or a jar of pickles, or a can of pears, or tomato sauce, but there is something about knowing that I did this - I raised these tiny little strawberries up from the scrubs hiding under the rhubarb plants, I picked each one by hand, I washed, sliced, cooked and canned them all. (Well, actually my husband has taken a fancy to doing a lot of it now, so technically I can't say that I did it, but rather we did it, and last night my son got into the act as well).  Is it healthier? - Definitely!  Glass jars are completely inert - no plastics to leach off their toxic chemicals, and we reuse them year after year - the only thing we buy new are the lids so they are sure to seal well.  None of the produce we use has been sprayed with any chemicals which is not something that you can truly know about the canned goods you buy in the stores.  As I am hunched over picking berries, or standing over a hot stove for the third night in a row I think of how good it is to be able to produce our own food - food that will actually nourish the kids and may help to fight or ward off diseases.  Strawberries are one of the best food that you can eat for their nutritional value and health benefits, but due to the amount of chemicals that are sprayed on them commercially, it sort of negates the benefits.... unless you are eating at my house, where during the Full Cold Moon of December we will feed you fresh strawberry jam on homemade bread and dream of being up to our eyeballs in Strawberries in June.