Autumn Olive

The Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) berries are starting to turn a bright red and it will soon be time to make some Autumn Olive Jam. It's still too early to pick the berries since they get sweeter with time.



Some of the bushes on our property are loaded this year. The deer and turkeys are already feeding on the berries, but I'm still doing quality control checks while looking for the sweetest bushes.




We used the following recipe from "dreams and bones" web blog to make our jam.

Autumn Olive Jam Autumn Olive Jam ~ the Saga 8 cups of ripe autumn olive berries 1 cup of water 3 ½ cups of sugar 1 package of no-sugar-needed Sure Jell Gather 8 cups of ripe autumn olive berries. (Be sure to taste test the berries as you pick. I've found the bright red berries to be more tart than the dull red berries.) Add 1 cup of water to the 8 cups of berries and bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes. Run the mash through a sieve and you will have about 5 cups of pressed fruit. Measure out 3 ½ cups of sugar. Take ¼ cup of the measured sugar and mix it with the contents of a package of no-sugar-needed Sure Jell. Mix it in with the pressed fruit and bring to a rolling boil. Add the remainder of the sugar to the boiling liquid and return to a rolling boil and let it boil for one minute. Then can according to canning directions and cool. This will make about six 8 oz. jars of well set jam. Nice and tart.

Fisher and Foxes

The first week of PA deer season has pasted and I haven't had any luck finding a buck but I did shoot some animals with my camera. On the fist day of hunting I caught a glimpse of a fisher (Martes pennanti) run between two brush patches. The fisher is a member of the mustelid family, commonly referred to as the weasel family. For the past several years I've only caught glimpses of this fisher but this time the fisher climbed an Autumn Olive bush and spent the next half hour eating berries as I snapped pictures.





While not as rare as a fisher, I had two red foxes stop by my deer stand to check out the hunting.

Autumn Olive Jam

A couple of years ago we made our first batch of Autumn Olive Jam and it's time to make some more of this tasty  jam. Since the degree of sweetness/tart will vary from bush to bush, be sure to taste test before picking. The late Summer weather was dryer this year and berries tended to be smaller so we needed 9 to 10 cups of berries to get enough seedless pulp for the recipe.



We used the following recipe from "dreams and bones" web blog to make our jam.

Autumn Olive Jam Autumn Olive Jam ~ the Saga 8 cups of ripe autumn olive berries 1 cup of water 3 ½ cups of sugar 1 package of no-sugar-needed Sure Jell Gather 8 cups of ripe autumn olive berries. (Be sure to taste test the berries as you pick. I've found the bright red berries to be more tart than the dull red berries.) Add 1 cup of water to the 8 cups of berries and bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes. Run the mash through a sieve and you will have about 5 cups of pressed fruit. Measure out 3 ½ cups of sugar. Take ¼ cup of the measured sugar and mix it with the contents of a package of no-sugar-needed Sure Jell. Mix it in with the pressed fruit and bring to a rolling boil. Add the remainder of the sugar to the boiling liquid and return to a rolling boil and let it boil for one minute. Then can according to canning directions and cool. This will make about six 8 oz. jars of well set jam. Nice and tart.

Spring Wildflowers

With today's warm weather the Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) flowers burst open and the smell filled the air. While the spring flowers are welcomed by the bees, this invasive plant has taken over fields and hedgerows on our property.



One the more unusual spring flower blooms is the chokecherry (Prunus virginiana). The flowers are arranged in tightly packed clusters on a single stem. Click on image to enlarge photo and see the flower detail.



Another bush with clusters of flowers in bloom now, is the Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica). The honeysuckle is another plant species that after its introduction to the area has become invasive and is crowding out native plants.

Honeysuckles range in color from white ...



to yellow ...



to pink.

Autumn Olive Jam

The Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), which is native to eastern Asia, was introduced to the U.S. in 1830 and is now listed as an invasive plant by the USDA. This bush was introduced as an ornamental and used for wildlife habitat but many farmers and landowners know this plant can quickly take over fields in a couple of years.



This year's weather has produced a bumper crop of fruit and I found a recipe for Autumn Olive jam on the "dreams and bones" web blog.



Recipe for Autumn Olive Jam

Gather 8 cups of ripe autumn olive berries. (Be sure to taste test the berries as you pick. I've found the bright red berries to be more tart than the dull red berries.)

Add 1 cup of water to the 8 cups of berries and bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes. Run the mash through a sieve and you will have about 5 cups of pressed fruit.

Measure out 3 ½ cups of sugar. Take ¼ cup of the measured sugar and mix it with the contents of a package of no-sugar-needed Sure Jell. Mix it in with the pressed fruit and bring to a rolling boil. Add the remainder of the sugar to the boiling liquid and return to a rolling boil and let it boil for one minute.

Then can according to canning directions and cool.

This will make about six 8 oz. jars of well set jam. Nice and tart.