Beauty Farming Life

It's the story, of a lovely lady, who was looking for some dewberries of her own... OK, Brady Bunch memory aside, here is a post two months in the making. The week before Mother's Day, I got an email from someone who found the blog while searching for dewberries in the Houston area.  She wrote the kindest note and asked if I knew where she could either pick fresh dewberries or buy some.  I told her that unfortunately, most of the places had closed up for the season.  She then asked if we allowed picking on our property.  I wouldn't have minded that at all, except we were in between them being not all ripe and not having a very good season anyway.  She needed them because she wanted to bake a dewberry pie for her boyfriend's family for Mother's Day.  It was their first one without their Grandmother and dewberry pie was a favorite family memory.  Their Granny used to make it all the time. After writing back and forth a few times...

New Dewberry plants coming up While I was working on the raised beds this weekend, I noticed that dewberry bushes are starting to spring up all over the place. HERE is last year's posting about them if you'd like more background about the plant.  Last year was a very prolific year for them, so I'm not sure how this year will be.  These look promising in that there are a lot of them coming up, but I'm not sure how much they will produce this season.  Sometimes it's every other year that's good.  We'll just have to wait about a month to find out! Last year we were able to have a dewberry picking party .   Fingers crossed that we can do that again this year! Closeup of new dewberry plant

See all those tiny little white flowers?  They are future dewberries.  In a few weeks, the blossoms should turn into ripe berries.  This is one of about six areas on the property that has a huge patch like this one. They are also springing up in other random places, like these that have come up all along the fence lines. Here is yet another large patch at the back of the house.  All we need now is consistent rainfall for the next few weeks, some warmer weather and we just might be rolling in dewberries. (fingers crossed)

Dewberries ripening Yay!  I was at the farm over the weekend and saw that the Dewberries are FINALLY ripening.  It's been an odd year to say the least.  I think the rains recently have helped.  They aren't as big as in years past, and I'm not sure there will be enough for a berry picking party like last year,  but they are definitely coming.  We should be able to freeze up some more this season and I hope to experiment with dewberry jam/jelly.   I think they have another week or two to be at full ripeness but I might start harvesting some this week. I just love that at least these  edibles come in by themselves every year and I don't have to do to a thing to help.  No watering, no planting, no pruning, no fertilizing...it's just Mother Nature working her magic.  Gotta love it! Click HERE to learn a bit about the Dewberry. Closeup of ripening Dewberry

Wild Texas Dewberry See the patch above with the white flowers?   I've been mowing around and around it, over the last two years, trying to train it to grow and stay within its area. Dewberries are coming It's now it's own little  large island... Dewberry patch An island of dewberries! Dewberry flowers For those new to the blog, CLICK HERE to learn about dewberries. They are still flowers at this point, but there are  hundreds  thousands of white flowers everywhere.  These will all become berries in another month or so.   We've observed that every two years, they seem to be really good and productive.  Last year was not so good, the year before was great.  That means that this year is the 2nd year crop and so we have our fingers crossed! There are dewberries everywhere on the property, along fence lines, under trees, etc, but this patch is near the garden (if you zoom in on upper left corner of first pic...

Cactus paddles and dewberries This is a neat picture...thorns and more thorns!  Saw this on the road leading to the farm.  It's a patch of cactus growing next to a patch of dewberries.  Definitely one spot you would not want to fall in to the middle of, ha.  Now that I think about it, cactus paddles like this are edible and dewberries are delicious, I wonder if this is nature's way of suggesting a recipe?  LOL! We'll be checking out the development of the dewberries this weekend.  Hoping for a lot to be ready soon.

This year, contrary to our initial thought, hasn't been so good for dewberries.  The ones out in the open just sort of shriveled up.  We're guessing lack of our usual spring rains.  BUT...if you'll notice in this picture, the ones that are hidden up under other bushes... ...are plump and juicy.  Even with some ready, there are still more coming along behind them.  Hope to pick them Monday or this next  weekend.  We might not get a large amount but a few more bags for the freezer would be fine with us. UPDATE:  Washout!  It poured/flooded so we didn't get the dewberries this weekend, hoping to get a nice haul this coming weekend.

Homemade dewberry jam Last week, I blogged about my first canning from scratch experience.  I made "dewberry jam".  Several of you asked how it was.  Well it came out beautiful and delicious.  Here it is on some homemade biscuits that 2nd Man cranked out one morning.  He wanted to do something different and made "biscuit sticks".  The jam was a perfect accompaniment to them.  Thick, chunky bits of dewberries, sweet with just a bit of tartness.  It was just too good.  So neat to think that we gathered berries that were growing wild on our farm and then made the into jam that we ate for breakfast! Very rewarding in more ways than one!  Dewberry Jam with biscuits Hope you are ready for the weekend.  Any big plans?  Or just same old same old as they say?  Hope you enjoy doing whatever makes you happy!

Several people have emailed and asked for the recipe I used for our recent dewberry jam canning adventure . It really couldn't be easier: Cooking dewberry jam It's a very simple one to one ratio, and because it sets up so quickly when the heat is turned off, I found it easier to work in smaller batches. Image above is 4 cups cooking at a time. Canning dewberry jam The 4 cups of berries with sugar will end up making about 5 pint jars. Dewberry jam Ingredients: 4 cups dewberries 4 cups sugar 1/2 pkg of pectin Cook dewberries on medium heat until bubbling, smashing with a potato masher or a large fork while they are heating up (we like it chunky, it is jam, ha). Once they are boiling, add the pectin.   Stir well and continue to simmer until it starts to thicken, usually just a few minutes. Add the 4 cups of sugar all at once, stirring quickly to make sure it all dissolves. Return to a boil and continue boiling for 1 minute. ...

Wild Texas Dewberry See the patch above with the white flowers?   I've been mowing around and around it, over the last two years, trying to train it to grow and stay within its area. Dewberries are coming It's now it's own little  large island... Dewberry patch An island of dewberries! Dewberry flowers For those new to the blog, CLICK HERE to learn about dewberries. They are still flowers at this point, but there are  hundreds  thousands of white flowers everywhere.  These will all become berries in another month or so.   We've observed that every two years, they seem to be really good and productive.  Last year was not so good, the year before was great.  That means that this year is the 2nd year crop and so we have our fingers crossed! There are dewberries everywhere on the property, along fence lines, under trees, etc, but this patch is near the garden (if you zoom in on upper left corner of first pic...

I noticed recently, a couple of weekends ago, that Ariadne hive, pun intended, was buzzing with activity.  Thought I'd share one reason why... The girls were flying in loaded up with pollen... Then I realized that they are in close proxmitiy to a large dewberry patch on our property that I've been cultivating and mowing around over the years to keep it just dewberries.  See all those white flowers? Beehive near dewberries They are dewberry blooms!  That means that the bees don't have far to fly to reach this wonderful source of pollen.   A quick flight over... ...and back, bringing pollen to the hive. Dewberry patch This is just one part of this particular dewberry patch, it's probably an acre in size.  As I walked up to it, you could literally HEAR the buzzing from the bees.  We have dewberry patches scattered all around the property but because some areas are hard to reach, I've been mowing around this spot for a ...

Dewberries are in bloom (and even have small berries), woo hoo!! Dewberry blooms We can't wait to harvest some.  We missed it last year because of the monsoon rains but so far so good this year.  We have grand plans for some dewberry jam (canning!) and 2nd Man wants to try his hand at some cobblers and muffins.  My mouth is watering already!  For those who are new to the blog, click on the "dewberries" tag below this post or over on the right side where it shows "labels".  But here is an early blog link about them:   DEWBERRIES The weather forecast for this weekend is wonderful, so we plan to take full advantage.  I hope to get more flowerbeds done and continue clearing the forested area (that's what we're calling it, for now, ha) and hoping that I can skip a week of mowing so that I can focus on these other things.  It would be awesome to get them DONE this weekend.

It was an OK year for our dewberry patches but not as good as prior years have been.   We think it's the lack of the "rainy season" this Spring but really, we can't complain too much because the last couple of years were monsoon rains week after week and NOT MUCH got done on the farm.  This year however, we've gotten quite a few outdoor projects done...  Dewberry vines This is an example of how dewberries grow. They are in various stages of ripening all at once so it's a progressive gathering method.  You have to check every few days, or in our case, once a week.  Usually though they are much bigger, these are smaller... Farm fresh dewberries Every weekend, we were able to gather one or two of these containers full of berries... It's just a hunting game, keeping your eye open for the black ones and of course, avoiding the thorns ... Here was one weekend haul, we had a few of these... Washing dewberries I would wash ...

Whoa, wait what?  Here is something that is SO wonderfully delicious. Dewberry cake.    Oh, and guess who made it? ME!  1st Man made it! Ingredients for Dewberry Ricotta cake I always like to get the ingredients all out and ready to go.  This includes a cup of our frozen dewberries, our homemade vanilla and some of the farm eggs from 2nd Family's chickens.  I also lined a 9" cake pan with parchment paper and lightly sprayed the bottom and sides with cooking spray. This recipe requires two bowls, one for the dry ingredients and one for the wet.  The best part is that it is a ll done by hand, no mixer required. Dry bowl and wet bowl The dry ingredients are put in one bowl; flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.  Stir to combine (whisk or fork, whichever you have).  The other bowl has the wet ingredients, the ricotta, eggs, and vanilla.  Stir until smooth.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine....