Tappahannock Farmers Market

This past Saturday I had my first ever booth at the 2nd annual Farmer's Market in the town we live.  I started last fall doing some canning.  My father-in-law had a lot of green tomatoes that would have gone bad or gotten destroyed by the upcoming frost.  He called me and asked if I would make him some green tomato preserves, reluctant at first I agreed.  I found a recipe that he described was like his mothers.  I have canned tomatoes (ripe ones) in the past but never tried my hand at preserves or jams.  The green tomato preserves were a success!  Personally I didn't care for the taste, but my father-in-law and his brother said they were very close to what they remember "Nanny" used to make.  This was the start of something!!  I enjoyed myself so much making the preserves, and he had so many more green tomatoes that I had to do something with them all.  So, I remember a recipe that a dear friend who passed away last year gave me and I started on the mission to find it and make green tomato pickle.  This is the best pickle!  The tomatoes are crisp and sweet.  I always remember having a covered dish lunches at church and knowing those pickles would be there.  After the success of both green tomato projects I set out to try my hand at making jams and preserves.  I love it almost as much as decorating cakes!  Last fall into the holiday season I made apple cinnamon jelly, apple pie jam, berry christmas jam, hot pepper jelly, and cranberry apple chutney.  I also did lots of baking and set up my booth at all of the local holiday bazaars with my husbands cousin.  So, when she suggested I rent a booth at the local farmer's market I thought it would be a good place to market my jams.  I never thought they would go over so well.  I started with 7 cases of jams and came home with 3 cases.  Some of the flavors I sold were raspberry lemon marmalade, bumbleberry jam (a mixture of blueberry, raspberry & strawberry), strawberry orange marmalade, apple pie jam, apple cinnamon jelly, hot pepper jelly, grape jelly & strawberry jam.  I have been invited to the Warsaw farmer's market the second saturday in July and I have registered for the rest of the season @ the Tappahannock market the 3rd saturday July-October.  I have plans to prepare jams and preserves with the seasonal fruit I can find such as peach preserves and peach chutney, cinnamon blueberry jam, strawberry peach, blushing peach (peach/raspb.), watermelon rind pickle and sweet pickles.  I will also have cake balls in a variety of flavors. And yes I have samples of the jams as well as the cake balls!