Berry Picking and Jam Making

Tate's Strawberry Farm

Earlier this week, M., my mom, and I drove out to Tate's Strawberry Farm in East Corinth, Maine.  We'd been waiting for a non-humid and not-too-hot day to go picking and this day was perfect.  We went early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day.  The drive out was gorgeous: rolling hills, small farms, and lots of trees and wildflowers.   The attendant told us that the heavy rains we'd had a few days before from the tropical storm hadn't damaged the strawberries because they were shielded by weeds.  Though the weeds made finding ripe strawberries a bit of a challenge, they were beautiful and aromatic.  Most plentiful was one of my favorite flowering plants, butter and eggs:

Altogether we picked seven quarts of berries. 

Berry hidden in the undergrowth

According to Tate's Facebook page, the strawberry picking is done for the season, although they will re-open for raspberries, blueberries and vegetables in a few weeks. 

The night we picked, I made strawberry shortcake.  It was freaking fabulous.  Seriously.  Just the right balance of sweet and tart.

The next day I worked on other things and left the berries out on the kitchen table.  When I came back to them the next morning to get started making jam, I was sad to find about one quarter of them had gotten too gooey to use.  The chickens, however, enjoyed the scraps immensely, once they got past their fear of these strange and terrifying new red objects.  They are scared of everything new--including the mostly-eaten ears of corn I gave them after dinner the other night.  I guess that fear goes along with being a prey animal rather than a predator.

I had a little over two quarts of berries and I ended up with eight half-pints of jam that I preserved in a hot water bath canner.   I had about a pint left over that I stuck in the fridge for immediate eating.  I admit, I ate a few berries in the field while picking.  They weren't super-sweet so I was wondering how they'd turn out in jam and a little worried that they might not be sweet enough.  But the finished product was excellent.  Bright and flavorful and if anything, too sweet for my taste.  In the future, I want to look into lower-sugar recipes for jam. 

Mmmm, strawberry jam...

I do have some unresolved issues about the experience, though, and I think they're relevant to others who are similarly interested in making ethical decisions about what to eat.  I had my reasons for berry picking and jam making:  I want to support local small businesses (the economy in this area of Maine is rough for just about everyone).  It's a good thing for our community's food security if we can produce food locally rather than having to rely solely on food that is produced in far off farms and factories and shipped long distances to us--if something happens anywhere along that supply route (for example, skyrocketing fuel prices or a drought), and we have no fall back options such as access to local foods, we could be in serious trouble, so it's good to have local sources available.   I also like knowing who has been involved in producing my food, how that food has been treated, and what specific ingredients have gone into it, so that I can better decide what to eat and what to avoid.

One of the biggest motivators of being more directly involved in the food acquisition and preserving process is the pleasure I take in acquiring and possessing the knowledge and skills needed to do so.  Like many humans, I'm driven to attain competence.*  I already have the competence required to earn money to buy jam from the store (even though my body is no longer cooperative).  I enjoyed earning that competence, and I enjoy acquiring the competence of more direct involvement. 

I think there's also an issue of control involved.  I want to know how to make or be able to acquire the things that are basic necessities for my life (food, water, shelter, etc.) without having to rely on people and processes over which I have little or no knowledge or control. One major reason for moving to a more rural property and developing our homestead was to gain more of that knowledge and control.  I was very uneasy living in an area where I was completely dependent on others to provide me with the basics I needed to survive: If my electricity went out, the city water stopped flowing, the air was polluted in some way, the roads were blocked, or the supply chain for my grocery store or gas station was interrupted, my life could be at risk.  Here, we are still dependent on others for many things, but we have the opportunity to become more self- and local community-reliant.  So, having some control over the things that sustain me is a value I hold and something that motivates me. 

What about the environmental impact of jam?  My first impulse was to think that picking strawberries from a local farm and canning my own jam would be an environmentally responsible thing to do.  In the case of any personal decision, it's difficult to determine what the most environmentally sound course of action is.  In this case, the more I thought about it, the less obvious it became that getting u-pick strawberries from a local farm and canning them would be better than the alternative.  We spent a total of an hour driving to and from the farm, just to get the strawberries.  I had to buy glass jars, lids and rings, sugar, and pectin from the store. I used my electric stove to heat the water that I used to clean the jars and lids, and in which I canned the berries.

Maybe it would have used fewer natural resources (and it certainly would have been cheaper) to just buy a big jar of some generic brand of jam from the closest big box store while doing the rest of my grocery shopping.  It seems like it would be most efficient to grow strawberries on big farms and use large trucks to transport the berries to a factory where workers would make and bottle the jam, and then again, use large tracks to carry the jam to stores.  That seems like it would use fewer natural resources than having every individual who wants jam drive to a u-pick farm, go to the store to buy their own canning supplies, and then can their own jam.  It's just not obvious to me that canning my own jam is the most environmentally sound thing to do.  I think many automatically assume that do-it-yourself is the best course of action with respect to natural resources.  I don't think we should make that assumption.

When I thought about it this way, I had pretty much decided that I shouldn't bother with picking strawberries and canning them myself.  But my mom was really excited about going to the farm and making jam (ok, I admit, I kind of was, too).  And I realized that I still remember the times we went berry picking together when I was a kid.  I imagined that this time would be the same: regardless of doubts about environmental soundness and the impact of my actions on the environment, I would enjoy the experience and make new memories that I would value for the rest of my life.  So, ultimately, that's why I went.

I enjoyed the multi-sensory experience of driving to and from the farm, and picking berries with M. and my mom on a beautifully sunny day while surrounded with fields of wildflowers.  I appreciated the opportunity to reinforce my knowledge of jam making and my canning skills.  And the jam itself tasted lovely.  I was also happy to support a local business and food security.  But I'm not patting myself on the back thinking I did something good for the environment. 


*For more about this drive, see research by E. Deci and R. Ryan (2000), The 'What' and 'Why' of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and Self-Determination of Behavior, Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 11, No. 4, 227–268. Article available here: http://users.ugent.be/~wbeyers/scripties2012/artikels/The-what-and-why-of-goal-pursuits.pdf.