Well done! That looks amazing. Are you a pie maker? I don’t know if I’ve ever had apricot pie! Don’t they smell amazing?
The birds got to mine, and the little bit of jam I made went right into my mouth. I mean the refrigerator.
I made some plum too.
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Those are the embodiment of “morning glory”! Plum is my other favorite.
I grew up in apricot country, with my mother canning dozens of quarts every season, and fresh apricot pies in summer. I 'm a sucker whenever I come across apricot pie or tart, but they never come up to the flavors of my childhood. So when we had this surplus of Blenheims, I yelled, “PIE!” It’s funny how you, or at least I, am too cheap to put expensive produce in a pie, when that same pie would cost, say, $20 in a shop and be half as good. Anyway, I have my pie this year!
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I’m growing lots of Fresno chilis this year, and plan to try that recipe. I might try it with some rocotto’s as well. Last season I tried “candying” them, and liked it a lot.
Would shrubs be okay in this thread? They are neither jams nor canned, but are my go-to when I can’t keep up with the bounty of fruit.
My wife makes jam from time to time, and I make refrigerator pickles. Both are water bath canned. We do a LOT of pressure canning. At any given time we are likely to have fifteen to twenty gallons (in pints and quarts) of canned goods in stock.
Ball’s Blue Book is a well regarded resource. The bible is USDA guidelines here https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html . Not the links to the left on other means of food preservation.
Right on point, my wife announced she is making tomato basil soup tomorrow. Looking at the pile of tomatoes, it looks like six quarts. We’ll can a mix of pints and quarts. Whatever doesn’t fit in one canner load will go in the fridge or freezer. Unless we end up with more in which case we’ll do two canner loads. grin
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I think there was a thread about shrubs. There’s one going about gastriques which are reduced shrubs.
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Had a really weird experience with some homemade grape juice recently. Grew grapes ourselves with heirloom vines from Andy’s late father - Concord variety.
Made about 6 qts only, but it turned out ok - nothing like FIL’s wonderful juice however.
Our juice got boxed up, and forgotten about, but was clearly marked 2015. We opened and tried it mixed with seltzer, and it’s just amazing in taste! Didn’t realize anything really improved with 5 years of age on it - home canned stuff usually gets worse IME, and has to be tossed. Chutneys benefit from some aging, but not too much, IMO.
So we are enjoying the juice until gone, and also have some from last year to use. Disturbingly, the 2015 stuff looks like prune juice, so I try not to look at it, or put it in a mug or opaque glass. 
Anyone else have any experience with anything like this?
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Not a canner, and trying to figure out what to do with a lot of green beans. Would a vinegar pickle need heat processing?
@Babette, I’ve had the best luck with pickled green beans by putting them in jars and pouring the pickle brine over. This type requires refrigeration for storage. If you want them to be shelf stable, you will need to process them in a water bath for the recommended amount of time. The salt and vinegar makes them safe for that method. If using a water bath, I would skip the blanching step to maintain as much crunch as possible. Good luck.
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If this is the post you meant, over the in the Rao’s tomato sauce thread, do you mean what happened to the color of the grape juice? I’ve never canned grape (or any other fruit) juice, so I have no personal experience with that. But I’ve certainly had experience with commercially- and home-canned fruit-based things high in anthocyanins (which are what gives fruits red, blue, and purple coloration) and with (ahem) “extended storage” (i.e., being forgotten in back of a cabinet), they usually start to turn brown-ish before the flavor actually suffers (though by the time they’re “distinctly brown”, they usually taste pretty-bad-to-gross, too). I suspect “prune-colored” is just slightly-on-the-road-to-brown for purple-colored fruits…
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Thanks @MikeG, yes the thread, but not the question; sorry! I meant the dramatic improvement in flavor, which took us both by surprise. I know wine improves in the bottle, but I didn’t expect aging in a non fermented product to improve flavor. IME, flavor as well as color deteriorates over time in home canned items, much sooner than commercially canned products of similar type. Except the colors on both do go wonky pretty fast.
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Oh, OK. But I also can’t really help with that either, other than presuming that some of the chemical reactions due to the ageing of non-fermented grape juice are broadly similar to what happens to wine, like tannins precipitating out or, getting bound up with other chemical constituents that reduce their impact on flavor, as well as some of the more complex chemical changes I’m really not familiar enough with in detail to hazard specific guesses…
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Exactly what I was thinking in regards to the tannins especially. It was somewhat puckery and a bit harsh when we first bottled it. Maybe too many not quite ripe grapes that mellowed with time. Anyway, it’s great, so we’re drinking it. Too bad it’s an ugly color, but oh well. Thanks for your thoughts @MikeG.
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It seems too early. I usually wait for the birds to say when , but thinking of harvesting some pluots.
“The pluots we have today are products of the breeding efforts of another California man, a man who is still alive and innovating, named Floyd Zaiger. (See an interview with Zaiger, his family, and watch some fruit breeding in action here.)”
( Update: Floyd Zaiger passed away on June 2, 2020. See my post, “Thank you, Floyd Zaiger.”)
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Only thing to remember when harvesting stone fruits of any kind @shrinkrap; once picked they will ripen, but never increase in sweetness. Happens on the tree only, but you probably already know that.
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I know, but they are so crunchy and tasty right now. Crunchy, tasty AND sweet. I’m guessing in a few weeks more, there will be a better balance. In the meantime, all manner of swarming locust, plague and pestilence* might come to pass.
- Using the word pestilence was on my bucket list.
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Beat the birds to them then @shrinkrap!
Haha, yes pestilence a great word & congrats for getting to scratch something off the proverbial bucket list! You go girl!
Making raspberry jam today, pics to follow. Don’t know yet WFD. Wish I had some of your sumptuous looking pork loin…(wanting to use sumptuous for awhile now…) 
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Con su permiso!
They’re small. I’m growing in containers and its a struggle for both me and the trees.
Flavor Grenade and Dapple Dandy pluots.
Both really nice, but we like the flavor and texture of Dapple Dandy better. Dapple Dandy fruit is really attractive too, but it didn’t set nearly as many fruit.
At least one bottle of small batch jam in the works.
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