You could do it the easy way.
Step 1. Buy a whole whack of strawberries.
Step 2. Stack ‘em.
But that would be too easy.
Better to take that fruit and jam it.
I jam strawberries, raspberries and blackberries every summer. My mother used to make jam as well, but hers was a long, complicated process involving paraffin wax to seal the jars, and a bit of voodoo. I do it the easy way.
1. Clean the berries.
2. Sterilise the jars and lids you’re going to use by boiling about a half-inch of water in a big pot with the lid on.
3. Take a kilo and a half of berries, add a half-kilo of pectin/sugar mix – the one with the 3:1 ratio so you use less sugar - and throw in a small packet of citric acid.
3b. Pour that stuff in!
4. Joyfully slash the pot with a knife to cut up the berries, then boil the crap out of them for three minutes while stirring and stamping down with a potato masher.
5. Pour the still-boiling mixture into the jars up to the brim.
6. Drop a lid loosely on each jar, then get a towel – because the jars will be super-hot – and tighten the lids as hard as you can.
7. Turn the jars over and let them cool.
8. Ummm… that’s about it. It takes me about an hour and a half now that I’m organised.
OH! Make that strawberry pyramid:
The banner photograph shows the town of Britannia Beach, BC, Canada, where I grew up. It's home. But I don't live there anymore.
Lol… I might as well take the easier route
But well the tougher one seems more delicious 
Fantastic! Looks like a year’s supply. We used to take a trip to the Okanagen every summer and then my mum would can fruit and make jam like a madwoman, paraffin wax and all. Nice memories.
I think the paraffin wax must be a Canadian/N.American thing. One summer early on here I started to gather everything together to make jam that way, and my wife says, what the heck are you doing??? She showed me how they do it here, and since then that’s the way it’s been. I like how you can hear the lids go -pock!- when they cool upside-down.
Why do you turn them over?
My resident expert says that it’s so that no air can get in and that it seals better.
That’s good to know, thank you!
My mother used to use paraffin wax, so maybe it’s a New Zealand thing too. The jam looks delicious and I particularly like the first photo with the blue punnets. did you save any berries for daiquiris?
Alas, no fancy drinks here. The leftovers were dessert tonight.
It’s summer! Ian’s back in the kitchen! I’d always done the paraffin too, until a country friend showed me your method. It works well. The photos are beautiful, but I don’t think that would be a year’s supply around here.
Lovely and impressive! I tend to prefer freezer jam myself – it’s even more idiot-proof IMO (not that you are an idiot, I am). Someday when I have a freezer bigger than a bread box…
We’ve got so many jars accumulated over the years, we’d never fill them all with two years worth of jam, so freezer doesn’t make sense. One year we had do do something with all the blackberries I picked, so I just put them in the downstairs freezer and made pies in the winter. Hmmmmm…..