I've been selling jams, jellies, preserves, butters, sauces, marmalades, hot pepper jellies, pickles, relishes, salsas, pie fillings, and mincemeats for 6 years. I make 50 different jams. Most all are from my farm or local farms. What I have found is that people seem to like the low sugar jams, the high sugar chocolate jams, the pickled veggies like okra and sweet peppers, the common Kosher dills, any combo hot pepper jellies, and then the totally unusual savory things like garlic habanero jam, mango raspberry jam, pink onion jam, and a variety of fruit based chutney's to use as salad dressing, to top cream cheese with crackers, or as a glaze. They poo-poo things like local strawberry, peach, plain apple jelly, and Concord grape jelly but snap up other local fruits like Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit, Damson Plum, Beach Plum, Muscadine Grape, Quince, Apple Rosemary, Wild Violet, Pink Rose Petal, Blueberry Lavender, and Persimmon. Maybe because they remember it or that they can't find it on the common corn syrup glop at the local grocery shelves. Which does not tell me why they won't buy strawberry or local Congord grape!! However, there are always people who want things that will never be successfully grown here and can only be bought "imported" like Rhubarb, Wild Blueberry, Rose Hip, and Lychee, and as I have said, the lemon and orange jams that sell well even when I tell them they are not locally grown!!!. I can't sell a single jar of Pear Sauce (like Applesauce) even though it is local and delicious. I also can't sell anything made with local honey instead of processed sugar but I get lots of request for no sugar from the diabetics where I have to tell them that it would not be jam but just canned fruit and would they want to buy that at my prices per jar? Not. I suggest you make jams YOU like. Unsold they have a use. I have dumped a lot of out of date canned things that did not sell but over the years have narrowed down what sells and what doesn't but my family gets a lot of canned gifts when I make too much. I NEVER ask if they enjoyed any of them. You also need to know your market = are they cooks or just samplers? Are they looking for something to stir into their yogurt, add to a slice of leftover chicken for a sandwich, or to give as a special gift? It really helps to know how to sell what you have to offer and little recipe cards or suggestions for their use fly them off the table with smiles and inspirations. I also tell them that they get a free cookie when they bring back the empty jar and ring (so I reduce my overhead) and usually buy something else for their pleasure and for my profit from not having to buy them (recycling works for me!). Nancy

hi all- this canning/preserve swap is going great-i've sent out my orange/cranberry sauce to 5 of you and am getting lots of preserves from you in the mail-its nice to get great homemade stuff in the mail-especially when theres no preservatives in them...susandonb-the cantelope/ginger preserve is excellent-never would have thought to put those 2 together-as well as the brandied black cherry sauce-such a nice treat-gardengrl-kathy-loved the peach salsa-my husband and i broke into that with tortilla chips and will be using the rest on a roast pork tonite- and robinkateb-just got your maple syrup and also the lemon/grapefruit marmalade-well try those this weekend for a great sunday breakfast---this has been so much fun-i look forward to getting the mail ---is anyone else interested in swapping??? i have lots more orange/cranberry sauce......... thanks cheri

Hah, I googled 'nchfp rose hips', because it is that time again, and found this old thread I had forgotten about! Too late to learn from my own mistakes documented here, though :-). But hopefully next time I will remember to look this up. This year, I'm doing a different made up method, simmering the rose hips until soft and then mashing with a potato masher. Maybe I'll try some lemon or lime juice, like the recipes in this thread. I'm not aiming for jelly, just syrup. That's what the previous batch ended up being, and it was so very tasty. if I had looked up this thread in time, I think I would have tried the freezer jam version, putting the raw rose hips in the juicer. I had them in the freezer already, so they would be mushy enough to get pretty good juice with just the juicer, I imagine. But instead I am doing the cooking method.

I have been making jams and jellies for years and years using the sterile jar, cover quickly with parafin method. Only on one batch did I have some mold.....and that was lots of years ago and it was plum jam and I had put a cinnamon stick and a few cloves in some of the jars and the mold formed around the cinnamon stick. I have 6 or 8 jars of crabapple jelly in the basement now....as clear and as lovely as they were when I sealed them with wax in the fall of 2009. I have been making preserves and jams and jellies like this since easily 1960 and only had maybe 3 jars mold....that plum stuff! Usually I manage to use it up or give it away during a year and so start fresh....but sometimes I go hog wild on something that is in season and it lasts. A couple of years ago, I found some jelly hidden on a shelf that had to be more than 10 years old. It was dark and I no longer remember what kind it was, but it was just poured into a jelly glass, not a canning jar, sealed with parafin and stacked on a shelf. There was no mold....I wasn't about to eat it...but I did open and wash the jars to reuse....but the jam or jelly wasn't moldy. Keep your glasses or jars sterile, cover quickly with a thin layer of wax....and when that has hardened add another layer and you won't have mold problems. And it's so easy! AGAIN.....this is for high sugar fruits....not for pickles nor canned vegetables.