It was actually bilberries that were the evening’s objective, but when you see several ceps / steinsopp in the woods and hedgehogs/piggsopp and saffron milk caps / matriske (almost all surprisingly in good condition without fly larvae) and chantarelles / kantarell, then there’s a change of plan….and there was still time to pick more than enough bilberries for drying another ovenfull!
A bit of a glut of fruit in my garden. I’ve therefore been drying raspberries and currants :) At the bottom are the dried fruit, also bilberries and saskatoons!
Pictures from my cycle home from work with a large detour up into the woods to pick bilberries and fungi!
The video that comes first is the magical moment when I discover a large ring of hedgehog fungi in the forest :)
Elderberries dried over my wood stove!
Sambucus nigra cultivars “Samyl” and “Samnor” – Ripe elderberries were impossible here until these new Danish cultivars arrived…ripe even in a bad summer!
Otherwise: Aralia cordata (Udo) and Aralia californica berries ready to harvest for trading seed…..
There’s been an almost complete failure of apples and plums this year (this has never happened before in my 35 years here). I can’t possibly start buying fruit after many years totally self-sufficient in my own fruit :), so I’m drying some berries I don’t normally use dried for the winter, cutting them up as these are slow driers. I believe, but aren’t totally sure, that these are Worcesterberries (they are thorny bushes, otherwise I would have said that they are Jostaberries). I’m also drying a few late saskatoons (Amelanchier spp. – these I normally dry). Luckily I also still have quite a few dried apples from last year’s bumber crop.
Streptopus amplexifolius has been used for its spring shoots that supposedly taste of cucumber and the ripe berries that give the plant one of its names, watermelon berry….A bit seedy (which I’m saving) but tasty! Can be laxative in large amounts! I saw a lot of this plant on the west coast of the US, but this plant originates from Europe (the plant is found in the wild both in North America, Europe and East Asia). A good forest garden plant.
Black raspberry (Rubus occidentalis) perfectly complements my red raspberries here as the one finishes as the other begins! I had my first blacks today (14th September 2015), seed propagated from a US variety Black Hawk some years ago…
Another reason to grow it is that a Polish study showed they contained 3 times the antioxidants as red raspberries and blackberries: http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/health/black-raspberries-are-the-antioxidant-superfood/article/453955
I’m excited by my first crop of Haskaps (Honeyberries or Blue Honeysuckle / Blåleddved). Even though the plants are only about 25-30 cm tall, all my five neglected plants had plenty of berries. I’m growing the following cultivars: “Borealis”; “Honey Bee”; “Indigo Gem”, “Tundra” and one other nameless.
I’m sure they’ll make a great dried berry and I’m keen to grow more. Unlike bilberries / blåbær, they don’t mind my alkaline soil!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_caerulea
