We are sooo blessed to have three fruit trees on our property. Now these are usual fruit trees. They’re rather unusual and they produce lots of fruit. We have one pomegranate tree. And two quince trees. We’ve been fighting black rot with our two quince trees for several years, and I’m hopeful that we’ll have some decent fruit this year. I believe we’ve lost one of our quince trees to the fungus though.

So what’s a quince? It’s in the apple family but it’s definitely nothing like an apple. It’s so hard that you can throw it at a window, break the window, and the quince would never have a scratch on it. It’s very very tart but if you cook it, it gets very soft and very sweet. It’s full of pectin and does not require extra for jams or marmalades.

Pomegranates are wonderful fruits. The seeds are very sweet and where all the juice is. I remember learning about pomegranates when doing a mythology study with my mom. You can read the story of Persephone and Hades here.

I’ve made pomegranate jelly before, but haven’t done so in awhile because of time and kids. But, Zoe is at such a great age to enjoy seeing fruit turn into something else and I can’t bare to see another season of fruit go unused, so we made some jelly today. The first time I made jelly with the pomegranates, we scooped the seeds out with our fingers, processed them in a blender, and then strained the seeds out…not this time! I read that you could use a citrus juicer (which we have…and it’s electric). So Zoe was able to juice the pomegranates on her own. She loved the pomegranate seeds and chomped on them while we were making juice. I think we’ll have enough pomegranates to make one more batch of jelly. I’m also going to try some pomegranate syrup to use with pancakes (our weekend treats when we’re home). Here are some pictuers of Zoe helping with the jelly. Ace was not interested one bit and Liam just hung out by our feet while we worked.

What a pomegranate looks like!
The inside of the pomegranate. The red is the seeds/juice.
Zoe getting the yummy juice. Pomegranates are very healthy and people all over purchase pomegranate juice for it’s health benefits! It’s very, very expensive to purchase…but we get it in seconds for free!