Browsing through my woods harvesting mulberries, I ran into a flowering bush that looked very familiar. Turns out, I have a large elderberry bush. I cleared a little of the vegetation around it to give it more sun, and now I guess I’ll be making some kind of jelly in a few months. Anybody got a favorite recipe?
Between that, the mulberry, and the wild black cherries, turns out I’ve had a food forest all along!
Drew had a few ideas in this post:
Don’t count your elderberries before they hatch…err…ripen. Birds can clean them out the same as mulberries and cherries.
If you have one, there may be others around, so you may want to look for them (and get it more sun too). That would give the birds more targets to split their attention between.
This year I have quite a few new berry types. Yellow caps, Newberry, Sherbet berry. I have to try more recipes. I don’t feel very motivated this year though. Too many non-gardening chores has wiped my enthusiasm out. Also I’m recovering from food poisoning, or a stomach virus (most likely). I feel like I went 12 rounds with a split decision. Everything needed harvesting yesterday black raspberries, tayberries, raspberries, currants, sugar snap peas, and newberry, I was too sick to harvest, today all looks fine, but I’m at 50%, very weak still.
You must have tons of mulch, or a good watering crew. Forecast says rain tomorrow, but it seems to keep missing me here. My Jumbo kiwi bloomed for the first time this year and I think it dropped most of its fruit because I missed watering a week (out of town trip).
My elderberries are in a pot and have been blooming for quite a while, but I don’t thi they’ve bloomed at the same time yet. I may need a third variety.
Scott
If you need a Euro type (nigra) I can get that to you.