Family Fun: Pick Your Own Fruits!

One of our favorite things to do with the boys is check out the local farmer's markets and pick your own fruit farms. Last year, we took it a step further and canned our own apple sauce and tomato sauce. It was a labor of love, but it lasted us all winter! Canning allows you to know exactly what ingredients are in your food! We officially started this year's canning yesterday with peaches! We also got blueberries and blackberries and used our food saver bags to seal them and put them in the freezer. This way, you can have fresh berries all year long! They are especially good in pancakes, muffins and cakes.

Here is the step by step way we canned our peaches:

We found that 1/2 peck of Freestone Peaches made about 9 pint size jars of peaches. You definately want to get the Freestone Peaches because the peach comes away from the core. The Clingstone Peaches "cling" to the core and you'll end up with something that looks more like mush than peach slices as an end result. We got our peaches from Irons Fruit Farm and it was about $16 for 1 peck of peaches.

Step 1 - Wash the peaches

Step 2 - Peel the peaches

We used a great trick: dip the fruit in boiling water for 20 to 45 seconds. Remove from the boiling water and put into a large bowl or pot of cold water and ice for several minutes. The peel will come right off!

Step 3 - Cut the peaches
Cut the peaches in half, or quarters, or slices, as you prefer! Remove pits!

Step 4 - Prevent peaches from darkening
To keep the fruit from turning brown, when you get a bowlful, sprinkle 1/4 cup lemon juice and then stir the peaches to make sure all the surfaces have been coated. (if you see above, we put ours in a casserole dish and "tossed" the peaches with our hands with the lemon juice)

Step 5 - Prepare the sugar solution

Peaches must be packed in a solution of water and sugar or fruit juice. It's up to you which to use, we used sugar. Sugar is also added to improve flavor, help stabilize color, and retain the shape of the fruit. We opted for a light syrup and for every 6 cups of water you would use 2 cups of sugar. We needed 2 batches of the sugar solution for 1 peck of peaches. To prepare syrup, while heating water, add sugar slowly, stirring constantly to dissolve. Bring to a gentle boil and keep it simmering. After preparing the liquid syrup, keep it hot (but not boiling).

Our goal next year is to use the sugar from our Stevia plant. It is an all natural sugar! You put the leaves in a dehydrator, grind the leaves into a powder and you have your own all natural sugar! 

Step 6 - Hot packing the peaches

In this step, we added the peaches into the sugar solution for 5 minutes. We then packed the peaches into sanitized jars (leaving 1/2 to 1 inch space at the top) and covered with boiling sugar syrup leaving 1/2 inch head space.

Step 7 - Process the cans
We used a Dial-Gauge Pressure Canner. The processing time was only 10 minutes once it got to the correct pressure. See your canner instruction manual for an exact time.

For more details about canning we like the Pick Your Own website.

Here is our finished product!

This worked out to a mere $1.77 a jar! Can't beat it!
(Once the jars cool, the lids seal completely and the peaches with sink to the bottom)

We finished off the day making some yummy homemade pesto! Are you looking for something to do with your basil?? Head on over to our Recipes page and check it out for yourself!

If you're looking for a pick your own farm in your area click here and get the kids involved! They really enjoy the novelty of picking their own fruits and it helps you out in the process!

We would love to hear your tips and tricks on canning peaches! Happy Canning!