The Tillamook goumi berry came to us from Lucile Whitman of Whitman Farms in Salem, Oregon several years ago. We planted out the first one right away, and quickly added a couple more as we began propagating them. Thanks Lucille!
These vigorous and productive bushes are now part of our nursery mother stock, and we have to work hard to keep enough of them in stock for sale as they become more and more well known and popular.
The bushes are fast growing and compact and produce berries the length of their many branches. The berries appear soon after the blossoms in spring and are ready for harvest in mid to late June or right into early July, depending on planting conditions, sunlight and soil conditions. Because they are goumis and actually fix nitrogen in the soil, they improve the soil conditions where they are grown within a couple of years.
The berries are red and somewhat soft when ripe, about the size of olives and will easily pick with stems attached. Because we use them to extract the juice of the berries for jam, having the stems on the fruit is no problem, and makes picking quick and easy.
Goumis are extremely tart and also have an astringency which makes the mouth pucker and feel dry rather than making the mouth water the way a sour lemon or lime will. This means they really are not good fresh eating berries, but they do make the most excellent jam when paired with fresh strawberries.
We decided to develop our own recipe for this jam as the choices for recipes were extremely limited online and we also are big fans of low sugar content and real fruit taste in our jams and spread. In some of our berry jam recipes we have replaced sugar with date syrup and had excellent results. In this case, we simply used less sugar than a typical jam recipe calls for, and the results were spectacular.
At our extended family jamming party this eyar, the strawberry goumi jam was definitely a standout favorite with everyone, and there is no question thatt his will become a standard in our annual jam making moving forward.
The tart and sweet notes are so nicely balanced it truly is like spreading strawberry rhubarb pie on toast.
Enjoy!
Goumi and Berry Strawberry Jam Recipe
Ingredients:
- 4 cups of goumi berry juice (need about 6.5 cups of goumi berries)
- 4 cups of cut-up strawberries
- 140g sugar
- 3 tsp pectin
Instructions:
- Boil mason jars, lids and rings for 10 minutes in separate pots
- Wash goumi berries
- Boil them with 2 cups of water and simmer them for 10 minutes
- Use potato masher during the last 3 minutes to squeeze more juice out of the pulp
- Pour through Indian sieve into a metal bowl
- Use wooden masher to squeeze all juice out of pulp leaving skins, pulp and seeds behind in sieve (compost these)
- Cut up strawberries to end up with 2 cups of cut-up strawberries
- Pour goumi juice and strawberries into big stainless steel pot
- Bring to a boil
- Mix sugar with pectin and add to the boiling fruit and juice
- Boil on medium heat for another 10 minutes
- Take sterilized (boiled) mason jars out of the boiling water and put them on a cookie sheet covered with paper towels
- Use green mason jar funnel to pour hot jam liquid into mason jars
- Cover with sterilized lids and screw rings on lightly
- Let sit at room temperature until jam jellifies