As far as possible, I like to eat fresh fruit and berries from the garden, usually with muesli for breakfast. I’ve been self-sufficient for many years, mostly home grown but augmented with wild foraged bilberries / blåbær. From when the cellar stored apples are finished, usually in April to the first haskaps and strawberries are ready, we go over to rehydrated dried fruit. Currently these are the berries and fruit we are eating now in autumn as the first frosts threaten: 1. Elaeagnus umbellata (autumn olive; Japansk sølvbusk) 2. Rubus ‘Sonja’ (blackberry; bjørnebær) – the only blackberry cultivar I am aware of that is hardy enough for our climate, not freezing in winter. Productive with tasty berries too! 3. Ribes divaricatum “Worcesterberry” (Worcesterbær) 4. Ribes biebersteinii (Ribes petraeum var. biebersteinii) (black redcurrant; svartrips); isn’t truly black, more dark purple coloured; hang a long time on the bushes and don’t seem to be taken by thrushes (like blackcurrants) 5. Malus domestica (apple; epler) – eating the windfalls that won’t store long.
We’ll still be 100% self sufficient in fruit and berries for the next couple of years (NB! I have to admit that I ate a banana on my visit to my mum in England last week…..sorry, otherwise I picked and ate blackberries!)
How to make? Just pick all the fruit and berries that are currently in season and either cook quickly to a pulp or grind to a pulp raw, spread as thin as possible and dry on the drying function in an oven at about 40-50C. Quick, easy, tasty and healthy (only natural sugar)!
Various berries harvested late July at home in the Edible Garden and in the Væres Venner Community Garden. More information in the picture captions. These were either eaten fresh for breakfast with muesli or were made into mixed fruit leather!
Mulberries (morbær) from a tree planted 15 years ago, received as Morus alba “Rubra” – these had started dropping from the tree!
Saskatoons / blåhegg – Amelanchier sp. ;this year the birds left a good number of berries for us – the thrushes and tits only seem to take these early on, until other berries that they prefer become available
Black redcurrants / svartrips (Ribes petraeum var. biebersteinii with assorted other berries
A mix of berries and indoor grown fig to be used in a mixed fruit leather
Redcurrant / rips “Pink Champagne” has a sweeter taste than most
From the community garden (Væres Venner), a sunnier site than my own garden, these super early tomatoes were ripe already on 20th August, something I never dreamed was possible in the past! 42 days to the left and Linda Siberian to the right.
With a series of -4C nights forecast, I’m harvesting and moving the last vegetables into the house and cellar. There are still many Worcesterberries (Ribes divaricatum) in perfect condition, eating with apples with muesli every morning. Harvested another load this morning as I expect that they will freeze and drop to the ground. I also harvested the last celery from the garden this morning, replanted in pots in the depths of the cellar where they will sleep until spring as cellary, ready to harvest whenever I need them. A couple of plants were also moved from the balcony, grown in pots for ease of access, to the kitchen for even easier access, one of them attractiv edimental “Red Stem” celery…
Having survived the wapato harvest last week (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=31597), our helper Daniil Titov was put to another challenging, harvesting the last apples….there are always many apples that we cannot reach with the apple picker, so tree shaking has to be resorted to as it’s too dangerous to use ladders on the steep slope. These will be dried in the near future. We already have enough for eating fresh until April in this year’s bumper harvest of Aroma apples. There are still quite a few at the top of the tree which couldn’t be shaken down, left for the birds.
Waxwings (sidensvans) have arrived here in numbers with about 70 in the garden today! Most of their favourite berry, rowan (rogn) had gone by the time they arrived due to the large flocks of thrushes that were here a week ago (mainly fieldfares, redwings and blackbirds / gråtrost, rødvingetrost og svarttrost). They had opened up quite a few apples near the tops of the trees before they moved on, and now the waxwings are enjoying them – they luckily don’t try to open other apples, so that there are still many for us! We’ve been harvesting the last few days, but still a lot near the tops of the trees that are difficult to reach even with the apple picker!
The last time I blogged about this Physalis it was 7 years old. It is now 13 and still going strong. The last time I wrote about it, I wrote the following: “This Physalis which I’ve called “Indian Strain” is now going into its 7th year. I got this from Seed Savers Exchange in the US. However, that one is supposed to be a tomatillo and I wonder if I mixed it up with another I got at about the same time, P. heterophylla, clammy ground cherry, although the stems are not clammy (sticky) to the feel. That would explain it’s hardiness as it is found in the wild north to Canada (see http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=PHHEH3). I definitely planted heterophylla in the garden and it’s survived since 2009 without winter protection, but the summer is just too cold for fruit (it does flower). It lives in a cold bedroom all year and produces a few fruit most of the year, even continuing to ripen fruit despite the temperature being often under 10C. The fruit are sweet and have good flavour. It’s not hugely productive but little bother (aphids don’t bother it). I cut it back when it gets too straggly”. I repotted one of them today and cut all 3 plants back to 1/3 height (it reaches the ceiling). The conclusion is that it is a cape gooseberry / goldenberry (Physalis peruviana).
Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa) is a species native to northern and western China, Tibet, Korea and Mongolia. My two plants are seed propagated about 20 years ago, but are planted a bit far apart for good yields, but I’ve just harvested a small crop, having forgot about them (in a part of the garden I don’t often go) but then I heard the fieldfares (gråtrost) feasting on them this morning. The berries are quite sweet to my taste, not sour as is often reported, but the seeds are relatively large. The biggest advantage with them is that they are supposedly hardy down to below -40C, so something for Northern Norway and the mountain areas. They are also earlier than sweet cherries (Prunus avium) and therefore it’s worth having a couple of bushes to extend the fresh fruit season (ripe just after strawberries and honeyberries /haskaps which are earliest here).There are cultivars; from wikipedia: “…examples include ‘Graebneriana’ (Germany), ‘Insularis’ (Japan and Korea), ‘Leucocarpa’ (Manchuria; white fruit), and ‘Spaethiana’ (Europe).” They are also fantastic when blossoming (and full of fruit), so a valuable edimental in any case! And, yes I do save the seeds for sharing with Norwegian Seed Savers (kvann.no).
The fresh fruit season approaches rapidly as the first fruit ripens…wild strawberries (markjordbær) and haskaps (Lonicera edulis). Since the fresh apples ran out early April we’ve been eating delicious rehydrated dried fruit salad every day. We mix different flavours (sour and bitter and sweet) in the same way as in mixed salads. Here are the recipe and ingredients in this year’s “Summer in a Bowl” mix: apples, wild bilberries, raspberries (from the hills and garden), yellow raspberries, redcurrants, saskatoons (Amelanchier), rhubarb, sour cherries and gooseberries! We both made mixed fruit leather and dried the berries as they were (mixed together in the rehydrated mix). I never buy fruit and never use sugar for preserving and don’t own a freezer (by choice).
Rehydrated fruit mix for breakfast every day is delicious:
The first ripening berries of 2021 (wild strawberries and haskaps):
…and the 2021 fruit harvest is very promising with both plums, cherries and apples all covered in flowers in May (pictures and video of the biggest apple tree – Aroma)
15 years old, my quince / kvede (Cydonia oblonga) is in full flower, a year after the first two flowers appeared (no fruit). I think I got this as a small plant but am not sure as the year before I have a note that I germinated seed but the resultant single plant died in its first winter.
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
(NB! I have to admit that I ate a banana on my visit to my mum in England last week…..sorry, otherwise I picked and ate blackberries!)
I also harvested the last celery from the garden this morning, replanted in pots in the depths of the cellar where they will sleep until spring as cellary, ready to harvest whenever I need them. A couple of plants were also moved from the balcony, grown in pots for ease of access, to the kitchen for even easier access, one of them attractiv edimental “Red Stem” celery…
Rehydrated fruit mix for breakfast every day is delicious:
