Originally from Ukraine I used to consume Cornelian Cherry fresh in my childhood as well my grand prepared a jell pit free. Her recipe has not applied a temperature to preserve it. That is why only fruits( pitted) and sugar and refrigerator. Winter time it was like eating fresh fruits when I opened a jag.
Cornelian cherry fruit is well known as a source of Vitamin E, A, C and molecular Iron. In Ukraine such fruit was considered a folk medicine, it was costly to buy because such variety never been adopted for farming.
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I remember reading that to be true. I planted two from Cricket Hill this past fall and then spring. One had died and they were so good about replacing it. I went with the two that were described as staying the smallest at maturity. One was Elegant and the other had āredā in the nameā¦Redstone? I was filling a spot where I had removed a gigantic and unruly forsythia which bloomed maybe for a week, and then looked horrible the rest of the time. I hated pruning it and more so, hauling back the debris. It tip rootedā¦ughh, never again. Anyway, while my plants are still very small, Iām excited that they will be well behaved and offer up so much more in their appearance and duration of flowering. Iāve read that they flower earlier than forsythia and for a much longer span of time. I know that I wonāt get fruit for a while, and thatās okay. Iāll be overwhelmed with everything else that Iāve planted! Iāve heard that it is nearly impossible to separate the seed from the fruit in order to process, but that it is wonderful for juice. I have a steam juicer that I got for my Concord grapes, but I hope to use it with these as well. Perhaps a Foley Food Mill would work, too.
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Glad to hear your grandmas jam recipe is just like mine- smush the fruit with a food mill and add sugar, done. No heat, no pectin. Done. Man is it tasty too! Ive found the trick with harvesting is to pick them when full color but still puckery and leave them in a bowl at room temp for a couple of days. They get dark and soft, and lose their puckeriness. Then they can be eaten fresh or processed. I wish there were some more cultivars from eastern Europe available in the US. Some of the large fruited higher brix cultivars sure arr tempting. I have seedlings here. Only one produces much and its pretty good by my standards. Ive found them as landscape trees a couple of places. Theres a few nice ones in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NYC, and the Highline is lined with them too. I was at a wedding nearby one summer and happened on them. Itd be nice to see it planted more. Its a cool and carefree tree though it does have a bit of a scraggly growth habit.
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It canāt be any worse than a forsythia! Even if I donāt like the fruit, Iām eager to see the multi-season interest aspect: early yellow flowers, jewel red fruit, more colorful leaves, and overall reasonable shapeā¦not a mess of unruly sticks shooting off in every direction! Iām excited for the low-care aspect of not having to do much to keep it maintained. It will just sit and look pretty while I tend to all of the other fruit trees, vines and shrubs on the property.
True!
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I really wonder how much of the lukewarm experience that predominates the thread is related to simply not having the highest quality cultivars available. These seem popular or at least somewhat known in places with a lot of good local fruit ā Azerbaijan, parts of Iran, etc. so itās not like theyāre only being eaten out of lack of alternatives. Given the cold-hardiness and the possibility that these are less susceptible to pest pressure than Prunus spp., it seems like these have a lot of potential for those of us in areas where itās tough to grow Prunus cherries.
Iād be curious if anybody has tried the fruit from some of the Cricket Hill cultivars; Iāve always thought about buying scions from him but have nothing to graft them to!
Just doing a quick search on google scholar, I came across these papers from Slovakian/Ukrainian researchers and a Romanian journal. Thereās a lot of variance in the TSS/TA ratios it seems; I wonder if the astringency is also lower in some of these cultivars.
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I hadnāt noticed this sentence, but yes it is hard to separate seed and pulp if done too early. Tge trick, as I mentioned, is to let them get a little bot soft and wrinkly and then the flesh comes free very easily. If you try to let them hang on the tree until that stage you lose most of them IME, thus harvesting and letting them finish ripening in a bowl, which they do readily as long as theyre already nearly ripe.
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I planted a couple cornelian cherries about 7 or 8 years ago, and they are barely clinging to life. I added another a few years ago, and it hasnāt grown much, either. Meanwhile, I now have gallons upon gallons of Carmine Jewel cherries.
They have a number of good fruit selections but unfortunately they donāt ship to U.S.A. I asked him if he could get licensed but it was to expensive and involved.
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Iāve never had the fruit before but Iām growing them as well. I started with a Yellow and a coral blaze. Iāll try and get a yugo sweet, black plum, flava, and Aliosha. as I understand it they can be quite decorative with their early yellow blooms so even if I donāt like the fruit Iāll just enjoy them for the flowers and use the fruit to feed the birds.
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Yes, very early flowering similar to witch hazel.
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The flowers are some of the least impressive I have seen. You have to be right in top of the tree to even see them.
Also my trees stay green most of the fall. The last trees to turn. They are at my cottage which I close the first week in November. The trees are still green. So I have never even seen the fall color. Most of the other trees are close to having no leaves at this time.
I enjoy the fruit a lot.
They like it here and grow well in heavy shade.
This is such a good tip. Thanksā¦now, if I can only remember it five plus years from now when they actually start fruiting! There are so many particulars with so many fruitā¦an example being donāt dry paw paws because it can be harmful to your health. I havenāt figured out a system to keep it all straight, except I do an exorbitant amount of reading and watching videos about fruit!
maybe it is variety dependent or climate dependent because if you google Cornus mas flowers you get some very pretty pictures of the whole trees in bloom.
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I realize this topic has been in āmothballsāā¦and recently revived. I thought of starting another, but might just post to this old topic.
Itās a tough plant, and a ānaturalā for the food forest concept. May be of European origin, but Iād not mind if it got āinvasiveā at my place. I have at least a half dozenā¦beginning to fruit. I totally have neglected them from the beginningā¦in a forest setting.
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It may be that by the time I get to my cottage in the spring the main bloom is over. Or maybe the low light conditions. Having said that the diameter of the flower, each flower not cluster is less then a half inch
. They just donāt compare to most flowering trees. Itās just my opinion. I donāt find them very attractive compared to even plums or peaches.
@BlueBerry I grow mine as a woodland garden. Well they are a hedge but a hedge in the woods. As my cottage is. Light is really broken up by the local oaks and maples.
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Some peaches are plumb ugly. Some apples blah. But, if one likes forsythia or jasmine, then the Cornelian cherry they should also like as a landscape plantā¦plus the bonus of the fruits.
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Yeah I think those plants are not impressive either as far as flowers. I do have a night blooming jasmine which is not really a jasmine but has the small flowers. Hundreds of them cover the plant three times a year. They are not impressive( yawn). They are the most fragrant flower and my whole block smells like them all night when in bloom. No scent during the day. Very strange!!
To stay on subject I do like growing cornus mas and will add more in the future. I currently have 16 trees. 14 are in a hedge, they were just seedlings, but the fruit is good. It took 6-8 years for them to fruit from seedling. The cultivars I have produce bigger and a lot more fruit too compared to the seedlings. Which is fine, I wanted a hedge, it is awesome. So Iām good. 11th leaf this spring.
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Good to know; I appreciate you addressing that!
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