Hundred 'n' Nine Jars of Preserves on the Shelf ...

Only a slight portion of this year's bounty.

There's truly something to be said with living off the land. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a couple of fruit trees and a hankerin' for growing edibles. (As Chris always says, "if you can't eat it, what's the point?" For the record I also love planting and growing the non-edibles, but here I digress.)

Urban homesteading is definitely where it's at. That said, Mother Nature doesn't space the harvest times out for us much, which means we have a LOT of edibles at any given time. This year I made over 100 jars of preserves. I'll break them out below:

Pruhig Rhubarb:
Our rhubarb plant is prolific; this is our third cutting since May; it's September now and it's still full! The trick to rhubarb is to cook it savory as well as sweet - you can substitute about 1/3-1/2 of the celery in any recipe - the more rhubarb, the tarter the taste - and see how it goes. Two of my favorite rhubarb recipes are rhubarb juice and braised rhubarb onion chicken.

Pruhig Fruit Trees:
This year our Italian plum prune and pear trees went wild; each bore us no less than 300 pieces of fruit each. What to do, what to do ... after countless fruit desserts ( plum and port crostata and baked butterscotch pears being two of them) and the giving away of bags 'n' bags to family and friends, I decided to accept the inevitable: I was going to can. Boy, was I ever going to can!

Pruhig's Neighbor's Contributions:
Urban homesteading is not for everyone; however, once word gets out that you have become one, those who choose not to get on this bountiful bus and know you have want to share (there are also plenty of terrific organizations that collect and distribute such food to needy folks, such as City Fruit , Community Harvest , and Solid Ground ). As a result, I inherited both crab apples (thanks, Ian), honey figs (thanks, Freecycle), and salal berries (thanks, Larry). Thank you, gentle donors.

Pruhig's Small Purchases:
I confess that not all of my fruit was gratis; I also found fabulous apricots, blueberries, a couple of bananas and oranges and some cherries at the local market and small cukes at the West Seattle Farmer's Market that I couldn't resist picking up and (subsequently) preserving.

The Result:
ONE HUNDRED AND NINE JARS of preserves! They are itemized below:
- 11 jars of bluebarb jam (blueberry-rhubarb)
- 14 jars of rhanana jam (banana-rhubarb)
- 4 jars of orange rhubarb chutney
- 3 jars of apricot jam
- 15 jars of salal preserves (both jams and jellies)
- 2 jars of fig preserves
- 3 jars of pickles
- 39 jars of tri-tree fruit jam (pear, plum and crab apple)
- 7 jars of crab apple plum jelly
- 7 jars of canned pears
- 2 jars of cerises l'eau de vie
- 2 jars of plum & pear l'eau de vie

Some of you may read this and think I have a wee bit too much time on my hands. But hey, if armageddon hits and the zombies try to take over, have I ever got food set aside!