Strawberries

I thought I was going to get my kids to go strawberry picking until I came across an ad on Craigslist for strawberries already picked . . . $17 a flat or $14 a flat if you bought 10 or more.  I thought there must've been some kind of typo there, because $17 a flat for already picked berries is pretty cheap around here, and $14 is just about unbelievable!  I called and they said that really was the price.  (The place I was going to u-pick at was $1.35 a pound and these were going to be $1.40 a pound!!)  I texted my sister to let her know about it.  I couldn't get berries then because I was too busy, but I could the following week.  She made arrangements and placed the order; I just needed to be there at 10:00 a.m. on the promised day to pick up my 12 flats.  I just have to add in here that my brother-in-law did stop by the stand to make sure the berries looked good.

On said day, my son didn't have school or work, so I got him to go pick up the berries - YAY!  When the berries got home I was amazed . . . they were beautiful and big:)

   

They had virtually no waste and they lasted for several days in the fridge.  I saved one crate to use for my jello on Saturday and they were still good.

Time for the fun to begin!! I made about 50 pints of freezer jam.

My girls froze 45 quart bags of them.  We cut them and freeze with sugar.  We use these in our frozen fruit mix, on waffles with whipped cream, etc.

At late o'clock at night we still had more berries to do, so I let the girls freeze them whole . . . something we've never done.  Tonight we're going to try to make strawberry butter from them after they thaw.  We've only made it with fresh berries before, but we're hoping it will work with these berries.

This is our first thing to go in the freezer for this season.  It's fairly empty now but I'm sure by late August it will be stuffed!!  I love getting all my fruit and berries frozen for the year.