Mirabelle Plum Tree

It's that time of year again when tons of delicious fruit is coming into season and the trees in our region are ripe for the picking. Thank you to Heather Patrone, founder of "The Rainbow Revival" (Read more below) for inviting us to come over to her beautiful villa to pick the plump yellow fruits of her lovely Mirabelle tree overhanging her driveway. We had such a lovely time picking the fruit and laughed so hard as we chased after the ones that fell and rolled down the steep decline of the driveway.

You can also find supermarket shelves stocked up with cherries, apricots, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. Empty jam jars,  labels, and special jam sugar, with extra pectin, making it almost impossible to get the setting process wrong, sit on shelves strategically placed nearby.

Jam making is not nearly as complicated and some believe it to be. In reality, jam making is actually quite simple, and freshly made jams are so much better than the supermarket shelf choices. It is such a lovely feeling of accomplishment to spread your own homemade jam onto a baguette fresh from the boulangerie for breakfast.

I love getting the children involved in cooking and baking. There are just so many educational opportunities for learning. Making jam can teach them about how fruit can be made to last longer than fresh fruit through preservation using sugar. In Maths they can learn about quantities and volumes. Getting them to write the labels, can improve handwriting skills and cutting fruit, pouring sugar and, removing the stones/pits can improve and strengthen motor skills.

I know what you are thinking! ... there is boiling sugary fruit involved which is not very child-friendly! But, these steps must be reserved for the parents to do. And while you are sterilizing the jars in the oven and boiling the fruit and pouring the hot jam into hot jars the children can be decorating labels for the jars.