Fall berry picking

Since we put out garden and bees to bed we have only been able to produce a few things to eat, and so we have been relying more on buying things from stores. We still have our own milk, which means that we also have cheese, yogurt, and kefir. We are still eating our own eggs, and we also still have a reasonable amount of swiss chard. Swiss chard keeps growing even in the snow at our house.

Last week we made some brie, since Mrs. True was due to give birth to our next child this week. She is not supposed to eat brie when pregnant, so we haven't been making it (even though I love it so much). In a few weeks we will be ready to eat a home made brie again, and I am super excited.

We went out today to pick some wild fruit and berries and supplement the things that we could grow at home. We got a reasonable haul: 2 gallon bags of rowan berries, about half a gallon of miscellaneous berries, about 40 windfall pears from a pear tree that went native in a forest nearby (the thing is so huge that there is no way that the birds can get them all, and they just fall off all fall.) We also got some apples, but they all got eaten as we picked the other things.

The truelets go to this forest to pick pears and apples about three times a week, but when I go with them we end up picking more than just apples and pears.

The rowan berries are not yet ready to eat. They need to be frozen for a few months before they will be ready for that, but the miscellaneous berries are ready right now.

We got four other types of berries. First we got fireberries (or, more correctly firethorn berries), which have poisonous seeds but taste decent when made into a jelly and also provide their own pectin, so they are great to add to other jellies. Last year we made a large batch of hawthorn/firethorn jelly which was very popular with the truelets so we will probably do that again this year.

We also got rose hips because the truelets wanted to pick them. They are high in vitamin c, but they don't taste good. Since I was leading them to pick wild berries, I decided it would be counterproductive to snub an edible berry if the truelets were putting them into the basket.

Third we got oregon grapes (I love them. They taste unique, and very strong). They are hard to pick because the leaves are spiny, and they are pretty sour, but we like them. People plant them all over the place, so they are really easy to find (even in the forest).

We also got common barberries which I have never picked before, but have a good flavor. the oldest truelet said they taste like rose petals, but I don't really think that they do. They are way more sour. They have saw toothed leaves and sharp thorns all over their woody stems. The berries fortunately grow in large clusters, and are easy to remove from the plant. We got quite a few from the large bush that we found.

We will probably pick some hawthorn berries from the park at the top of the hill to round them out, and then make a jelly out of some of the berries, and eat the rest.

Strawberries: A mini-story

When we were picking cherries, I talked a little with the friends who told us about the cherries, and they told us about a patch of wild strawberries that is near their house as well. We decided on Sunday to go up to see the patch.

Since Mrs. True and the middle Truelet were taking a nap, I went with the oldest and the youngest Truelet. We were excited as we went out, and decided to bike there in the new bike. Mrs. True is very strong to take them all in that bike. It was hard on the small hills even.

We didn't exactly know where the strawberries were, just approximately, so we went out into a large vacant area behind a church to look for them. The first thing that we found was a gooseberry bush. It had some edible fruit on it, so we ate some and picked some, and we continued to search.

Next, we looked under some small sumac trees that were growing in the area, and found the patch. We noted its location, ate a few berries, and decided to come back the next day with boxes to pick a bunch of berries.

The trip was a success, despite the Truelets' tromping over the patch and destroying a lot of berries. We plan on taking their shoes off next time that we go strawberry picking (so that they notice when they step on a berry.)

We ended up getting over a gallon of berries that we froze for smoothies. We also made a pie, and the Truelets ate as many berries as they could.

The moral of this story is: remember to talk to people about your fruit gathering habits. Everyone has a chance of knowing about fruit that you do not know about!