The last week or two has been the ideal time for picking berries in our area of Colorado. Our late summer tradition is to make enough homemade jam to stock our freezer for the year.

Not only is freezer jam super easy to make, but it's also our favorite because it retains the fresh fruit taste. I'm sure cooked jams have their merits as well, but we are freezer jam loyalists in this household.

To start things off, the kids and I headed out early one morning to pick a full flat of raspberries at a local u-pick farm. We may or may not have eaten a lot few while we picked. I mean, who can resist such temptation?

Then we headed home and got to work ~ rinsing, crushing, mixing, etc.

By the way, crushing is the perfect job for 3 and 4 year olds. A&A went to town on those berries!

Our labor yielded 6 jars of raspberry jam!

We also picked up some amazing peaches from another local farmer's market that were brought in from Palisade, CO. They were by far the best peaches I've ever had...as in yummo x 10!

This was my first time to make peach jam. That batch didn't set quite as well as I'm used to, but it still tasted wonderful. We tried some on our pancakes the other day.

Finally we got to work on the strawberries. First we made 3 jars of strawberry jam, then we switched things up at Ayden's request and made 3 jars of strawberry-blueberry jam. After sampling some this morning on our biscuits, everyone declared the mixed berry jam a hit as well.

Overall we made 15 jars (30 cups). Sometime this winter we might tackle some grape jam using grape juice rather than actual grapes. For now though, I think we're set!

The McCulley 2011 Freezer Jam Marathon was a success!

{ Vintage images via Flickr}