A Beautiful Sound

Pling! A few minutes later, Pling! Then again, Pling! and ultimately twice more, a signal that all five pint jars of peach jam that I just canned had sealed. This has always been a happy, beautiful sound to me as I have made a habit of planting July Elberta peach trees at all of my homes for making peach jam. I have also harvested wild muscadine grapes for jelly or found "old-fashioned" crunchy pears to mix with minced freah ginger and lemon for an exquisite type of pear preserves.

When I bought this home, there was one white peach tree on the property. (It is loaded with fruit this year, but that variety doesn't ripen until late July or August.) I quickly ordered and planted 4 July Elberta trees. They had some peaches last year, their second year on the property, but I was away when the fruit came in. This year, with the beautiful spring, the copious water and the sunshine, my trees are loaded with fruit. I picked a bowlful of peaches tonight and only barely scratched the harvest, yielding 5 pints of jam. It looks like there will be many nights spent peeling, pitting, chopping and cooking up peach preserves for sharing and for eating during the winter months to come.

There are also wild muscadine grapes that I trained onto a trellis when I moved here. They are also going to bear fruit this fall, the delicious and uniquely flavored black grapes that are native to this area. I hope there will be enough of them to make some jelly. There is nothing quite like muscadine jelly.

I have also planted a plum tree, but it may be some time before it will be ready to yield a crop of plums. It will happen in time, though, and I will likely make some plum jam.

Categories: gardening peach July+Elberta canning jam muscadine+grape plum