Dyeing with beets and plums plus some seasonal canning

I’ve spend the last couple weeks working with natural dyes. As I was doing this I was also amassing some of the local produce for my seasonal canning.

First to the dyeing project the beets and plums produced some interesting colors.

beet juice dyebath

Plum dyebath

beet juice dyed on top , plum skins on bottom

I used the plum pulp for some delicious plum jam. I also made strawberry jam and some homemade BBQ sauce (my son has been begging for). I couldn’t let my 8 grapefruit or the small quantity of peppers go to waste so I canned that up as well.

strawberry jam

BBQ sauce

grapefruit

Pepper jam turned upside down to distribute the peppers evenly.

I was feeling rather energetic and had about 4 dozen eggs from the chickens so I also made some pickled red beet eggs. Yum!

Pickled red beet eggs

I also started combing the gorgeous fleece I picked up at Fiber Frolic in June.  I usually comb it twice to get really nice top.

scoured fleece

1st combing

Here is a pic of all my efforts this week. I’m kinda proud of it.