The Mast-Head: Jars in the Cupboard

The next couple of days will spell the end of the remarkable beach plum crop of 2014. A mild, relatively dry summer made for good growing conditions, and the dunes from one end of town to the other were full of the tart purple fruit. A prodigious turnout of wild grapes in the understory was related to favorable weather as well.

I have been making as much jelly as I can just from the fruit gathered along the path to the bay beach in front of our house. It is tough to keep up, though, with the kids’ after-school activities, busy weekends, and the fact that I’ve had to spend a remarkable amount of time replacing a failed below-deck gas tank in my aging boat.

On my frequent trips back and forth to the marina at Three Mile Harbor where Zygote is docked, I’ve passed a modest stand, no more than an oil-cloth covered sawhorse and an old beach umbrella, where someone has been selling beach plum jelly. At $7 a jar, they go fast. By dusk there will be one or none left; a half dozen more appear early the next morning. Those who secure one or more of them will count themselves lucky.

So far, I have six jars of my own put up on the shelf at the far end of the kitchen. I have four jars of grape jelly done, too, and I intend to get a couple of pints of tomatoes put away for the winter and plant some fall kale and lettuce in our modest garden beds.

In the next few days, I also hope to harvest as many of the remaining beach plums and grapes as I can. I have heard about but have yet to try extracting the juice and freezing it until time allows to complete the canning. But in truth, since I work in small batches, four cups at a time generally, it is not too much bother to just go all the way once the kettle is on.

Still, things come up. The boat is still not quite done. There are house chores that need attention. Pets to look after. The newspaper. The beach plums nag at me, though, and I hate to see them fall like so many raisins, shriveled, onto the sand. I’ll do what I can. Certainly I can get another few jars in the cupboard before the first frost.