Grape jelly.

[Bob Riebe]

I made my own grape jelly for the first time ever last night.
Three pint and four one-half pint jars.

I found it takes a LOT of grapes to make jelly but worse was all recipes call for more juice than I had so I had to buy a jar of unsweetened grape juice as most recipes said DO NOT skimp on ingredients or it will not set.

As it was I had 3 1/2 cups of juice  from Concord and two wild grape vines I have but needed 5.
I squished them , strained them, and cooked them with Sure-Jell.  Sure-Jell said do not change our recipe as not all Pectin acts alike.
I boiled and sanitized the first five jars I had and after the concoction was going into jars discovered I did not have enough jars, and I had taken most of my jars, dozens South to use for trading at farmer's markets so I ended up dumping out three jars, decades old with stuff from pickled beets to the unknown, rinsing with hot water, hot enough to scald and using them.

By the grace of God, I had lids in junk drawers in the basement some Kern and other generic.
I have not tried it yet as I will let it sit for at least a week before seeing how well my creation came out.

[Lloyd Smale]

I make raspberry and strawberry of the vines in my yard every year and for the first time this year took some peaches off my peach tree and made 6 pints of peach. It was good but i still prefer raspberry to all of them. I ran into the lid shortage myself. Had enough to do the raspberry and strawberry but when i went to do my peach i was out. Sent my wife to town and there wasnt a single pack of large or small. I had to buy a pack of large off ebay and payed 13 bucks for them with shipping. there as hard to get as 9mm hps!! I dont bother with pectin anymore. Berrys have enough natural pectin. Just add about a tablespoon of lemon juice with the sugar and cook it till it thickens. I guess the lemon juice is suppose to bring out the pectin better. But ive even made it without that and it comes out fine. Just a bit longer on the stove. My ma used to toss in a pack of jello in the same flavor because it was cheaper and eaiser to find then pectin.

[oldandslow]

We used to have four grape vines and made grape jelly out the kazoo every year. The grape vines are gone and so is the jelly making. Last fall on a trip to norther NM to photograph the leaves changing and just generally sight-see we stopped at a road side fruit stand east of Espinola to get a few pears and apples and they had some moonshine jelly. it was supposed to have some moonshine in thee mix and I just had to try a jar although I doubted there would be any taste of booze in it. I was right on that point but it was very good jelly and the only grape jelly I've ever run across that was clear as water in color.

We used to drive up to Cloudcroft and stay with my wife's sister and her husband to go pick wild raspberries in the fall for jelly. That's the best jelly I've ever eaten and far better than what you find on the grocery store shelves. The sister and husband have moved to a warmer spot in NM and none of us want to mess with making jelly at our ages anymore.

[Bob Riebe]

Here is the kicker, I planted a Choke Cherry tree by my house.
They are supposed to get 10 to 15 feet high.
I cannot reach the lowest leaves on mine.

Now it had cherries this year and I just plain forgot to look at the time they are ripe, so I did not pick any though I would need ladder to do so.
Ditto for a Sour Cherry Tree I have, nice and low, I looked at it all summer thinking I will pick those when ripe; WELL, other things were on my mind more and when I though of it, they were already soft and crappy.
The first year it had cherries, I saw they were nearly ready, thought next week they get picked, so I went to pick the next week
They were not over ripe, they were gone, totally gone, there was one single red cherry still hanging in the tree.

My Concord grape vine, which normally does get ripe with full clusters this time of year, for some odd reason had ripe ones already a month ago while on the same cluster some are now ripe while others have turned into hard dry raisins already.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive got 6 grape vines. two concord and the ohters i fogot there names but there mostly wine grapes not eating grapes. My brother in law picks them every year and lets them soak in shine he makes. I usually get a couple bottles for my trouble but insist on the non flavored clear. dont need fruit in my whiskey.

[oldandslow]

There is quite a selection of "shine" in jars filled with fruit for sale. Nope, not for me, but I will say Crown Royal peach flavored booze is pretty good sipping stuff and I guess a lot of people agree with me as it is about like finding hen's teeth around here. That's not a big deal for me as one bottle would last me all winter and it's something I'm not interested in in warm weather. There are a couple of family members I would give a bottle to for Christmas if I could find any.

[Ranger99]

Haven't had any grapes for a while.
There were a bunch of muscadines
in the country, but they were getting
too out of control and they had to be
taken down