Nothing better than a slice of good bread to enhance blueberry jam. For breakfast, for snacks or picnics, during your breaks of the day. We might sometimes forget the essential!
Archives pour la catégorie Blueberry Love
Blueberry pie
A very simple recipe found there : http://www.auvergne-centrefrance.com/recette/tarte-aux-myrtilles.html
Preparation : 10 minutes. // Cooking : 30 minutes. // For 4 persons
Ingredients
1 shortcrust,
2 eggs,
125 grams of sugar,
20 cl of thick cream,
2 spoons of flour,
500 grams of blueberries
Preparation
Spread the batter into the pie pan and arrange the blueberries. In a bowl beart the eggs and thick cream blended with sugar and flour. Pour this mixture on the fruits and put in the oven (thermostat 7). Let it cook for about half an hour.
Acid soils
How to bring down my soil pH between 4 and 5 to plant blueberries :
The trick is to put a handful of sulphur in fresh soil before planting yor blueberry shrub.
Blueberry shrubs pruning
Pruning is done during dormancy in cold dry weather conditions after leaf fall. Dry weather avoids disease proliferation when making cuts and allows wood to heal faster.
Pruning shears must be clean, wipe it with alcohol or fire to kill all bacteries and viruses. This must be done regularly during pruning day. It avoids progagating diseases in the orchard.
Pruning consists of aereting your bushes to allow light inside the shrubs. We are keeing 5 main branches with the current year’s shoots and we remove an old branch every year. Some less vigorous species are made keeping 3 branches only during the first years.
The first picture is showing us a blueberry shrub before pruning.
This second picture is showing you the same shrub now pruned, some old branches have been removed to let space for the current year’s wood shoots which will be bearing fruits the following season.
Some professionals prefer pruning every two years, it requires then twice as much work during the second year so there is no time gained .
Pruning has another advantage for pickers. Indeed fruits with be easier to gather and bigger saving time significantly during the picking.
That’s it all that remains is to check the equipment and bring some elbow grease, good luck.
Blueberry jam recipe
This recipe is quite simple to carry out : necessary ingredients are blueberries (i use frozen ones), sugar and citric acid (lemon juice).
I put together 5 kilos of blueberries and 3 kilos of sugar no more because my fruits are naturally sweet already and bring it to boil, let it cook for about ten minutes in order to reach 55 brix degrees ( brix being the unit to measure the sugar content, it is done with a refractometer).
I then remove the preparation from heat and add the lemon juice. Lemon juice helps acidifying the mixture and avoid jam ending up too runny.
I immediatly pour the whole into jars that i close and put upside down to pasteurize them naturally.
You can easily make about twenty 300grams jars with this recipe.
Happy cooking to you and remember that « blueberry protects eyesight in the long run ».