Apple and peach picking (September)

Northern Virginia seem to have tons of farms open to the public; as in "pick your own".  So we drove out to McIntosh farms and picked a big box of peaches and one of apples.  We were given a very crude, not to scale map, two wagons and a couple of boxes.  We mixed our peaches with both yellow and white.  The yellow peaches were way sweeter.  Van LOVED the idea of picking our own fruit and was quite enthusiastic about it.  I had to go through the peaches several times as he kept throwing in ones with big rotted holes.

 Van showing his prized peaches

 Part of the orchard

 Couldn't really buy a whole box without sampling first

 The boys showing me their picking skills

When we got home I immediately went to work on the peaches.  This was my first time canning them.  They looked so pretty in the jars until they settled, then it was very apparent that I didn't pack them in as each jar was only about 1/2 to 2/3 full of peaches.  Next I made some peach jam that sorta turned out as syrup or maybe just runny jam, whichever.  Next up was peach salsa;  the salsa I was most proud of as it was pretty and delicious!  I also made a batch of apple butter