North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

I have some Solanum burbankii, the Wonderberry, that is pleasantly sweet to eat fresh, but it's messy to handle because the berries are soft and juice a lot when picked.   It self-seeds quite a bit and the seedlings regularly come up early and they take a surprising amount of frost.  I have a lot of them already over 6 inches tall.  They would be larger if they weren't crowded.
-Lon
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com  Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003. 
For even more grape lessons, go to  http://www.grapeschool.com
For growing supplies and more;  http://www.grapegrowersolutions.com

On May 24, 2007, at 11:30 AM, Lucky Pittman wrote:

At 10:28 PM 5/23/2007, Donna wrote:
> Beware of Garden huckleberry, yuck!!!

Amen to that!
I grew some (Solanum melanocarpa) one year - big, vigorous plants, 
producing huge clusters of handsome blue-black berries.
But, despite leaching and baking soda treatment - as directed - and 
lots of sugar, grape juice concentrate and lemon juice for flavor and 
acidity, the jam and pies I made with them always had this lingering 
metallic aftertaste that was just....unsettling.  Made me think that 
perhaps I'd not managed to remove all the toxic alkaloids.

Lucky








> We grew some of the usual kind as
> well as some sweet ones from Tim Peters.  The blister beetles really sent
> for the sweet ones, I guess they know a good thing, and left the bitter ones
> alone.  Even cooked, the garden huckleberries had a nauseating bitterness.
> The sweet ones were actually quite good, but it was a constant struggle to
> keep the blister beetles from scarfing the plants up entirely.    Donna
>
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