Farm Grown Strawberry Jam
My photography is inspired by my life on this farm and in these rural areas, so why not add a few products to the shop that were made here at the farm…. The jams are half pint jars, gluten and nut free. Produced here in Kentucky by hand (in a commercial kitchen) using berries from this farm.
As the days grow shorter and the temperatures dip it becomes the season for jam and bread, butter, and toast, and jelly, and preserves. We cannot wait for the mornings ahead during the winter months to enjoy the most delicious strawberry jam, and we hope you’ll join us too. Tonight we share the story of our very own strawberry jam, the one we hope you’ll soon be holding in your hand.
Of all the items we make our strawberry jam is the one we are the most proud of. The strawberries, grown right here on this farm, are part of a dream that began long ago. Back in the 1960s, here on this very land, just outside what is now my back porch my grandmother grew rows and rows of strawberries each year. When I was a child, long after she quit growing the berries and had developed Alzheimer’s her empty freezer jam Tupperware was in a cabinet in what is now my laundry room, and her berry baskets sat stacked down in the cabinets below. As a child I dreamt of what it must have been like to grow all those berries, to fill those baskets with the most delicious red fruit, and to carry them in her antique berry basket tray—an antique I celebrate it’s survival in the December 2021 tornado every time I see it in my studio.
As I grew older we had strawberries in the garden, each year I would pick them to eat straight from the vine, but I dreamt of making jam and carrying on the tradition my grandmother started a half century ago.
This year we launched our Strawberry Jam….made with berries grown right here on the farm. These simple, unassuming jars of jam are the most beautiful red, but they’re also the most delicious strawberry jam you’ve ever had. Simple ingredients, hand processed here in Kentucky and carefully wrapped and mailed to you.
The story of these jars of jam began last September when new plants went into the ground, mixed with plants we’d kept alive since the mid-90s here in the garden. The berries weathered the winter and unlike the orchard survived the tornado. In the spring they and other berries from a nearby farm bloomed and grew and produced…slowly ripening in the mid spring sun. Their blooms first setting on after the threat of frost was gone. The berries were picked daily using the old baskets and trays, capped and sliced the old fashioned way, and slowly churned into the jam we now have jared.
The process is simple, but the tradition is long, and the knowledge comes from the generations that have farmed this land. To create the very best strawberry jam it takes a community, a heritage, and a pride of place. We couldn’t be more proud of the jars of jam and their limited quantity, only a couple hundred were produced this year… We think this jam season they’d be perfect with your morning toast and watching of the rising winter sun. We thank you for your continued support of this dream to produce goods from this old Kentucky soul out here on the banks of a very old creek. Enjoy and grab a jar or three if you will.
