We're Jammin'

Bob Marley - Jammin' by Dan_of_the_Land

Yeah, I know, I said I wouldn't be posting here anymore, but two things have me back here.

First, a combination of going through the learning curve with the Groundwell Farm website and the sudden repair of my Blogspot.  And second, the desire to share with you all the latest bounties here at the farm.


We have been jammin indeed!  And saucin' and butterin' and even slicin'.  Some of you may remember that about a year or so ago, we here at Groundwell made the decision that the best way to "start" a community would be to involve ourselves with the community that is already here.  So we started, gently, making contact with neighbors in new ways.  Since then, we have made several friends, shared lots of work, and, most recently, been gifted with hundreds of pounds of fruit!  Our tomatoes tapped out just in time for this unexpected bounty.

First came the grapes from Morell, the neighbor with whom we planted potatoes (with a crop yield of about three hundred pounds!) She can no longer eat grapes because of her kidneys, so she said we could have them all.  In total, we probably harvested about 60 pounds and made some of the most wonderful grape jam ever!  You can get the recipe by clicking here.

The snozberries taste like snozberries!

We made concord grape jam, and mixed grape jam, and with a batch of pink and white grapes we made snozberry jam.

Another neighbor had apple and pear trees that they make no use of, so we picked about 50 pounds of pears and 150 of apples,

and are now putting away applesauce, sliced pears

and apples and anything else we can think of.  Back to Morell again for the peach harvest which she gave us half of (about 40 pounds). They are small white fleshed peaches

and are becoming lovely, lovely peach butter.

Then last night another new friend came to my rescue and sold me a whole bushel of the most beautiful peppers

for a most reasonable price.  These will be incorporated in a big batch of salsa, and will also be sliced and diced and quick frozen so that this winter I do not need to bow at the wal-mart altar for peppers every week.

So, in conclusion I suppose, the lesson learned here is to extend yourselves past facebook and twitter. Social networking on a face to face level will enrich your life.  I realize that here I've been listing off very tangible returns and that will not always be the case.  Perhaps it will be no more than a smile, a wave, or the touch of a human hand.  But isn't that worth so much more than a picture or a quippy quote on a screen?

Reach out there!  I want to jam it with you!