Pin Cherry aka Fire Cherry “grows in dry to moist clearings, open woods, woodland edges and disturbed sites. Its seeds sprout easily after a fire and can lay dormant for many years. In fact, it has its common name, Fire Cherry, due to its value as a reforesting agent after fires. It has another common name,… Continue reading Prunus Pensylvanica: aka Pin Cherry, Bird Cherry, Fire Cherry

Less colorful than an Apple, less shapely than a European Pear, the rustic Asian Pear strikes an exceptional balance between the two, producing juicy sweet fruit on convenient, modest size trees. Shinko top, Nijisseiki bottom.

Need perennials? Great places when in stock in season: Edible Acres visit to Twisted Tree plant nursery. Creative, early landscape and growing designs at Edible Acres. High density planting at Black Creek Farm & Nursery. The power of mulch and compost: Black Creek Farm & Nursery goes for a visit.

Fantastic overview at Flock Finger Lakes: 20 Ways To ATTRACT WILDLIFE to Your BACKYARD GARDEN

Ripe Aronia is bloody red inside, flavorful, mildly sweet, also juicy if the season is wet. Pictured below with Blueberry, Autumnberry, Elderberry, and unusually small Blackberries.

Late July, northern Pennsylvania, unripe.

Black Velvet and Jeanne gooseberries and red currants, northern Pennsylvania. Jeanne is sweet-tart. Black Velvet and the red currants variously sweet, with some acid.

Elderberry, with Autumnberry, Blueberry, Aronia, Blackberry, northern West Virginia. (The blackberries were unusually small – the only ones left by the birds and deer.) All these berries ranged variously sweet with some juicy acid. Little to no tart. Picked ripe. (Note: the elderberries in photos below on plate and in big cluster are Bob Gordon… Continue reading Elderberry August 2022

Eastern Prickly Gooseberry: late July, northern Pennsylvania. These six gooseberry fruits, each at a different state of ripeness, early green to dark dried-on-the-bush, curiously all had a variously sweet taste, from fruity to wine-like, a very smooth resin. Each fruit chewy.

Juneberries (serviceberries) have come and gone in a big flush but other June fruits are producing: haskap, goumi (large & small), carmine jewel cherry, and Nanking cherry photoed here. The sweetest fruit seems to depend on which is most ripe. All of these fruits have a reputation for being tart but on mature plants all… Continue reading June Fruit 2022