Late Summer is in Full Swing

Where did this summer go?  It seems like it was just barely May and we were carefully tending newly planted seedlings, wondering how long it would be until they really took off.

Now it's August, and the tomatoes are on the verge of bursting into red ripeness (in fact, we've already been sampling our grape tomatoes!).  Here's one of my farmhands helping me stake up her tomato plants.

Yesterday, our neighbor two doors down brought us plums from his tree.  And not just a few.  He gave us around 115 plums.

These are just some of the plums.
Aren't they pretty?

What do we do with that many plums?!  Well, we eat them fresh, of course, and to start with we decided to make plumsauce (like applesauce, but with plums).  So Mama Stephanie cut about 25 of them in half and cooked them down.  But they didn't turn into plumsauce.  There was so much water that when we blended it, it was more of a puree.

That got me to thinking--jam starts with puree.

So here we are, our very first (and perhaps last, depending on how it turns out!) canning project.  We had the right jars and lids, the pectin, the sugar, but no canning equipment.  No matter!  A stock pot with extra jar rings in the bottom is a fair substitute.

Measuring out what we need for jam.
The rest is for plum BBQ sauce.  YUM!

Sanitized and ready to be filled!

My canning rack, as it were.

Waiting to get in the bath.

A nice, hot, 10-minute soak.
And by soak, I mean boil.

All finished!

My husband counted each of the 11 satisfying "pops!" as the seals were created.  Tomorrow, we'll taste it and make sure it's good enough to share with our friends and neighbors!