- Victoria is situated in southern Australia with co-existing old and new buildings, an urban charm and elegant streets
- Melbourne is touted as the Garden City
- the city is covered in greenery and has been ranked as the most liveable place on Earth
- also a city of fashion with European influence
- apart from special tourist attractions, traditional and new cuisines can also be found here
- nearly 10-yr-old Yarra Valley Farmers' Market is open on the third Sunday of every month
- from 9am onwards, farmers begin selling their harvested produce there
- a great place to look for special and fresh food products
- the strawberry jam tastes sweet, but not the sweetness of white sugar, but rather the natural sweetness of strawberries
- it uses fresh strawberries cultivated in the largest strawberry farm in Victoria Australia Mornington Peninsula
- it covers an area of 250 acres
- a machine is used to plant strawberries
- a plastic pipe will be laid underground for irrigation
- the plastic will cover the entire plot of soil to prevent any direct contact between the strawberries and soil
- the strawberries will rot easily
- fertiliser is used are little pellets which contain lime powder and chicken powder
- the lime powder controls the pH scale of the soil
- irrigation is critical in strawberry farming & the soil must be turned
- saplings will rot if planted too deep and dry up if planted too shallow
- there's much knowledge and skills involved
- trench must also be dug manually
- fertile and well-irrigated soil will determine the sweetness of the strawberries
- once strawberries start to sprout, wet fertiliser must be added every 10 days
- saplings are extremely weak and have to be folded into halves so that they won't break easily
- the soil must cover the saplings and planted straight up and cultivated until it bears fruit
- farmers begin a new planting season from March to June every year
- takes another 6 mth for the saplings to grow to maturity
- sufficient sunlight ripen the strawberries bringing true sweetness and lustre to the strawberry fields
- the weather must be warm in the day and cool at night
- farmers only cultivate strawberries from November to April
- after April arrives, winter arrives, and no strawberries will grow in cold winter
- strawberries are best cultivated in hydrophobic soil at about 8" to 10" deep
- after the strawberry harvest, the land is used to grow wheat grass
- strawberries and wheat grass draw different nutrients from the soil
- the land will undergo a "recovery" period once the wheat grass is planted
- after the wheat grass is harvested, the land can be used for growing strawberries again
- a common technique used for strawberry farming
- harvested strawberries are transported to the factory to be made into jam
- hand-made strawberry jam allows quality control over every jar of jam
- bulks of strawberries transported there are kept in cold storage of -18 to -23 deg C
- they can be kept for 2 years and are used to make jam in batches
- strawberries must be left to thaw overnight after they're removed from cold storage
- first they're cooked for an hour (70% of pot filled with strawberries, followed by 30% of the pot filled with water)
- a thermometer is used to ensure the strawberries are cooked at the right temperature (betw 95 & 100 deg C)
- overly high temperature will burn the strawberry jam while low temp will fail to bring out the flavour
- keep stirring the jam for an hour
- once the jam thickens it's ready to be jarred
- jam takes half a day to 2 days to coagulate in cold storage
- it's not as thick when it's being jarred
- Vitamin C and fructose are added
- fructose will make the jam less acidic and last longer
- it's ready to be jarred after checking the pH scale of the jam
- it must be lidded once jarred or risk contamination
- the jars are washed, sterilised and taken out after a few minutes
- a cautious attitude and meticulous production are necessary to produce the best jam
- the jam goes into storage once it's ready
- the temp is set at 25 to 30 deg C to allow the jam to coagulate
- the factory can produce on average 400,000 jars of jam a year
- small output compared to other factories
- there's no pulp in the jam as they've dissolved the pulp completely
- making strawberry jam is a long production
- cultivating strawberries is time-consuming and requires heart and soul
- the processing factory also has to invest massive manpower and resources
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