We be Jammin

I have been making jam out of a local invasive plant; chokecherries. Chokecherries were brought here by the pioneers as a food source and the wood was used to make tool handles. Nowadays they are considered a pest because they grow aggressively and the cherries are too tart, and have huge seeds for their size (hence the name chokecherries). But after seeing all the canning supplies at the store I looked into making jam out of them. It turns out you can make jam by boiling the cherries and saving the "juice".

The jam made this way isn't very thick because there isn't any pulp, but it is much easier to make because it doesn't require me to pit the cherries. It has been raining the last few days which will plump up the blackberries that grow all over the area. Once it stops raining, I am going to make some blackberry jam and some chokecherry-blackberry jam.