Fresh fig
Whether I am listing a home or selling one, I always point out the value of a fig tree when there is one in the yard. Most of my clients just look at me and shake their heads. Few appreciate that they have a tree that will be filled with the fruit of the Gods by mid-summer.
One of my clients has the most prolific fig tree I have ever seen. Free of birds and squirrels, just popping with crop after crop of big brown figs. Figs that no one particularly wanted. You eat a few fresh ones off the tree and move on. But I was raised on figs. My grandmother made whole fig preserves. My mom, who wasn’t that fantastic of a cook anyway, made whole fig preserves. There were scores of pounds of figs being unused; so Katy and I took up a new hobby – canning.
The same client with the fig tree also has a limb breakingly prolific pear tree, so we have been canning the heck out of figs and pears. Following is a picture chronicle of our developing skills.
Figs boiling in sugar syrup for 3 hours
The makings of pear preserves - 26 cups of cut up pears, 12 cups sugar, cinnamon, and ground clove
Apple peeler - a necessity for peeling and coring mass quantities of pears
Pear Preserves ready for the jars
Filling the jars
Sealed jars process in boiling water for 10-15 minutes
Finished preserves- nothing like that reassuring "ping" of the jar lids as they seal after coming out of the canner
So what do you do with your treasured jars of preserves and jams? We sure can’t eat all this stuff ourselves; maybe the most rewarding part of this canning thing is being able to give some of the product away to good friends, and of course, the provider of the raw materials.
This is what it’s all about:
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