The Spring Thaw–Repurposing Last Season’s Freezer Fruit

Right now in our freezer we have twenty three bags filled to the brim with berries (black, red, and mull), roasted tomatoes and pumpkins, as well as more than a few sliced and pitted plums. Now, the off-ic-ial rules clearly state that such bags need to be used up or discarded, but that is not the way here on the Farm. No. We use what we grow.

And how we do it is this:

The berries themselves may be thawed and used immediately in any which way, and the way in which I have chosen (this year*) is by canning them in a simple syrup. That way they may be made into whatever they’d like to be when the time comes. To do that, the berries are thawed and stuffed into clean mason jars. A medium syrup (two parts water to one-part sugar) is poured over all right up to a quarter inch from the top of that jar. The lid is (tightly) applied and the whole thing placed into a boiling water bath canner where it is left to simmer away for twenty-five minutes. The plums are treated the same, although with them, I rather like the way they taste with a bit of lavender, so a handful of that is placed in the syrup while that’s being made, and taken out just before it covers all.

Now the Farm has fifty-quart jars filled to the brim with good things long before the season starts—quart jars which will last at least eighteen months longer. AND, we have a clean freezer, ready for all this season will produce.

In past years, I have made jellies and jams, chutneys and sauces from the ‘freezer fruit”, and all work well, but seeing as we still have several jars of jam still gracing our shelves and bushes loaded with fruit-to-be, we went with the simple syrup route, instead. But you can feel free to do whatever works best for you and your family—just don’t let it go to waste.

For the tomatoes, that’s simple and always the same. What’s left of last year’s freezer tomatoes always gets turned into this year’s ketchup. Always. And it will. Just as soon as a spicy pepper or four grace our garden paths and the cilantro gives up and decides it’s really coriander, after all.