Tips and Techniques, Recipes and More!
On this page you will find lots of tips and techniques for picking
and processing the fruit here at Doles orchard.
...For some of our favorite Recipes!
and processing the fruit here at Doles orchard.
...For some of our favorite Recipes!
Before Making your trip to Doles...!
A few things to consider before you get in the car!
- Always Call Ahead! We can never stress this enough! Due to the unique nature of our business our hours often
change through the seasons. We also can't guarantee ahead of time that we will have the type of fruit you want to
pick on a certain day - i.e. we may be open for strawberries and raspberries, but the blueberries got picked really
hard and need a couple day to ripen up! Or peaches are running later than expected so even though we said we
should have them this week, they just aren't ready yet!
- Stock up on freezer bags and jelly jars before you pick your fruit! You don't want them sitting in a hot car at the
supermarket or waiting too long at home!
- Containers! We sell the standard berry flats and quarts at our stand. If you don't want to buy a container and
you don't have any saved from years past, you are welcome to bring any container you like - boxes, tupperware,
pots, etc. Be sure to come up to the register and have your container weighed so we can subtract it from your total
berry weight! We have Pick-You-Own bags available for apples, peaches and plums.
- Be sure to bring your sunscreen and bug repellent - bugs are usually not bad because we get a lot of wind that
keeps them at bay - but not always!
- We hate to see dogs locked up in cars. Dogs are not allowed in the berry patches, if you can leave them at home,
please do. We welcome friendly, leashed dogs in the apple orchard, but they are not allowed in the berry patches!
We have our own dogs that run free, so yours must be friendly with others!
Below you will find Tips for the following...
Drying Fruit . . . . . . General Fruit Preserves
Seasons...You will find info on picking, freezing and more!
Strawberry . . . . . . Raspberry . . . . . . Blueberry . . . . . . Cherry . . . . . . Peach/Plum . . . . . . Apple
Drying Fruit . . . . . . General Fruit Preserves
Seasons...You will find info on picking, freezing and more!
Strawberry . . . . . . Raspberry . . . . . . Blueberry . . . . . . Cherry . . . . . . Peach/Plum . . . . . . Apple
The first thing to note is that home dried fruit is not the same as what you find in the supermarket. Most fruit has been sulfured in order to keep without completely drying the fruit, allowing it to be softer, some fruit even has sugar added. Some other dried fruit, such as what you find in most cereals (besides raisins) is freeze dried which gives it a crisp, airy texture.
Fruit dried in your home dehydrator comes out chewier, tougher because it has to be more dry to keep well. Sliced apples can be dried til they are crisp like a chip - a great snack!
Any fruit is good to dry. Simply cut it to desired size - not too thick or it takes to long to dry, and as uniform as you can for simplicity - they will all be dry at the same time! Strawberries cut in half, blueberries and raspberries whole, everything else in slices, thickness up to you. You can even get special mat for your dehydrator so you can make fruit leather - purreed fruit dried, cut into strips - really tasty!
Simply follow your dehydrators instructions and store in an air-tight container. To ensure they keep, store in the fridge or freezer.
Pectin
We have found that your best bet is to use the recipe that comes with your pectin! And we recommend Sure-gel over Certo for it's reliability. You can find other low-sugar and sugar-free pectins online if you are interested.
Fruit
It is also important to remember that fruit has lots of it's own pectin and that is reflected in the recipes that are specific to each type of fruit. That said, the riper your fruit the less pectin it has, so be sure you are picking a range of really ripe and tasty fruit as well as slightly underripe to maintain you pectin levels.
Preparation
Be sure to prepare your fruit as necessary - pealing, pitting, hulling, whatever is appropriate. After that, its up to you how chunky or not you want your jam or preserves to be. We usually use frozen fruit which allows a lot of juice to come out, making a stick blender an easy and very quick option. Pulse around in your pot until your desired texture is reached. You can also opt for chopping either by hand or using a food processor (you can also use the slicing attachment if your machine has one). Or even a potato masher works well if you prefer crushing the fruit, less chunky but plenty of texture - especially good when using fresh strawberries, raspberries and peaches.
Never jammed before?!
We have found Raspberries to be the most reliable berry to jam, a great place to start for those first-time jammers! Raspberries have lots of their own pectin and we have never had a soupy jar! Any jam that turns out soupy can be used as a great fruit sauce for anything from Pancakes to ice cream and much more. You can find more info on how to fix a batch of jam that did not set with a simple search on the internet. (though I would 'suffer' with the sauce and start a new batch, I don't care to over cook my fruit!)
Don't think you have time or the 'knack' for it?
Try freezer jam! Talk about easy, all you have to do is boil enough water to dissolve the pectin, crush fresh fruit and measure sugar! No cooking required. It is the BEST tasting jam and very versitile. You store it in the freezer and take it out as needed. Very Kid Friendly!
Picking
If you come out of the field with red fingers, you are bruising your berries and shortening their shelf life! Lots of folks grab the berries and pull. Strawberries are very delicate, you should hold them gently while pinching the STEM between your thumb and finger. Lift and snap stem. No bruising, no stains!
Freezing
We recommend hulling and slicing your strawberries and mixing approx. 1/2 - 3/4* cup of sugar to 10lbs of strawberries and freezing in quart freezer bags. Enjoy in your cereal, atop fresh biscuits or over ice cream all winter long. For Smoothies simply hull the berries and freeze on a cookie sheet. When firm slip into a freezer bag and you can take just a couple out at a time.
*We recommend adding sugar to your sliced berries in order to maintain good strawberry flavor. Their natural sugars break down in the freezing process amd they need an extra boost. We have tried adding sugar after being frozen, and we found it doesn't work well unless you cook the berries (i.e. jam, sweet bread, pie filling, etc.)
Raspberry Season!
This is the only fruit we discourage children from picking unless trusted and well supervised! We have tons of strawberries and we are more than happy to let folks taste test, same goes with most other fruit. However, Raspberries are very expensive and anyone who, like most children, eat more than they put in the box can quickly eat $5-$10 or more worth of berries. We don't like to discourage anyone, but this has proven a problem in the past. Please respect us and the work that it takes to run this farm - Please Pick, Pay and then Eat your Raspberries!
Picking
Raspberries are very easy to pick. They should pull very easily off the plant - the center should come right out. It's easy to get carried away picking the berries right out in the open, but you will find even more if you bend over and tilt you head to get a different view of the plants. The best berries are hiding just behind the next leaf!
Freezing
We recommend freezing your berries if you don't plan to use them right away. Raspberries are very delicate berries and very susceptible to mold. We do not spray to extent shelf life (and many year they never get sprayed at all), so you don't have to wash the fruit before eating or freezing. We recommend freezing right in the container you picked into to keep from squashing your berries. Once frozen, losen and place in any freezer safe container.
Bluberry Season!
Picking
Blueberry picking can be tricky. It's hard to see the backside (stemside) of a blueberry before picking, which is why it is so important to bend down, and get different and closer views of the berries you are picking. Blueberries ripen from front to back, so even though it may look blue, you will often find the back to be purple and green right around the stem. This is fine if you are freezing, baking or jamming with your fruit, but to eat fresh, they taste a bit sour. To avoid this, the best way to pick is to cup your hand under the fruit and use your thumb to gently roll the berries off the stem and into your palm - if they don't come off easily, they are not ready!
Freezing
The easiest berry to freeze! Just pop into a freezer bag and freeze! Great if you want to pick now and jam or bake later!
Tips For Cherry Season!
Containers
Because cherries are in a tree, you often need to two hands and cannot comfortably pick and hold your container at the same time. Try to find a container at home that you can attatch a string or belt to and tie around your waist (it doesn't have to be big, you can dump into a larger container as you pick). Hands Free!
Picking
We are not supposed to allow customers on ladders, (those insurance companies!) but often times there is a couple left nearby for your use, though for the first few days to a week of picking, you can reach plenty from the ground. To save on a little bit of work and weight, you don't need to pick the stem, its easier not to, so long as you process or freeze them quickly. If you don't think you will get to them right away, you will want the stem. This is because the fruit gets damaged when you pull the stem out (no big deal since the have to be pitted!) and they become more susceptable to mold if let sit too long. If you DO want the stem - please save out trees by using two hands! The stem doesn't come off that easily and you will want to hold the branch just above the stem and use your other hand to pull stems with the cherries off.
Pitting
Ahhh, the one thing that really is no fun about cherries! If you have a hand pitter that you use on sweet cherries, we find that it doesn't work well on Sour cherries. Old fashion, hand-crank pitters do well, and they may have something newer on the market that I am not aware of, but do keep in mind the difference in size and texture of sweet cherries and the sour cherries that we sell. That said, if you don't have a ton of cherries to pit, you can do it by hand. Use your thumb and two or three fingers to pinch the bottom half of the cherry and gently squeeze the pit out of the stem hole. Its easy, just more time consuming.
Freezing
Freezing cherries is very simple - minus the pitting part! Be sure to pit your berries first as the fruit softens in the freezer, you don't want to handle them that much after they have thawed. You can pop them in a bucket or bag, with or without sugar. I would recommend without sugar as you will most likely be baking or jamming with them and you don't want to have to adjust your recipe for the added sugar.
Plum and Peach Season!
You can make great jam/jelly, preserves and chutneys, fruit tarts and pies! Peaches are a little more versitile than plums, but both are unbeatble when tree ripened and are canned very well.
Containers
We offer our Pick-Your-Own fruit bags for easy peach and plum carrying!
Picking
Like in the supermarket, you can ripen underripe fruit, but it never gets as sweet or flavorful, so be sure to pick fruit that has just started to soften. Don't over squeeze your fruit to test it, it does't take much. Hold gently in your hand and roll over the stem to brake away from the branch. Some of the plum varieties you can tell how close it is to ripe just by the color (peaches a little bit - more yellow then green), others turn color long before they ripen. Be sure to check which kind of plums we are picking before you head into the orchard. Always be very gentle with your fruit, you don't want to bruise it. And though your are picking into a bag, be sure not to pile peaches or plums too high, unlike apples which are much more crisp and firm, they will start to bruise under more than just a couple layers of fruit.
Freezing/Canning
To freeze or to can - that is the question! It all depends on what you goal is in the end. Either way, remove the skin on peaches, leave it on plums.
To just eat - I recommend canning. Peaches and Italian Plums can wonderfully. We have a couple of Japanese style plums that we have not tried to can yet, so I can't tell you for sure, but they say you can online. Only a light syrup is required and they can be eaten right away or sit on your shelf for a couple years. The Italian plums color deepens as it sits and we recommend waiting a couple months before eating as the flavor improves a lot!
To bake or jam - I'd say freeze. Peaches you want to be sure to add lemon juice or citric acid to keep from browning, adding a little water to fill in the spaces between slices also helps. Slices or halves is up to you. I don't think plums would hold up well in the freezer unless using for jelly. When freezing to bake or jam with I don't recommend adding sugar because you would have to adjust your recipe later.
Jamming
Again, be sure to remove the skin on your peaches, not on your plums. Much of the flavor and color in the skin of the plum you want to keep, where the peach fuzz you don't!
Apple Season
Apples are a wonderful fruit because they are so versatile. Fresh, they have along shelf life, dried, canned sauce or pie filling, jelly, juice, baked and more, they are delicious!
Picking
Apple picking is a wonderful fall tradition for many families. However, safety is a concern for farmers because we live in a country where, to put it nicely, you can blame others for your own mistakes. And for that reason, we and most other orchards ask that you do not climb trees or ladders.
For this reason we have picking poles. They are very easy to use and can help reach many apples that are even hard on a ladder. Simply catch the apple the bag or basket, lift up and twist gently until the apple falls in. The only thing we ask is that they are used by adults or with good supervision - a roughly wielded pole picker can not only be broken, but it can cause more apples to hit the ground than land in the basket, and we are not allowed to use 'drops' for cidar anymore, so that can be very wasteful!
For those apples that can be reaches from the ground, try not to just pull. Roll the apple up around the branch the stem is attached to, this should help release the stem without pulling off a bunch of leaves or breaking a branch.