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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] alum in odorous Autumn olive?

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  • From: Hank Burchard <hank@burchard.org>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] alum in odorous Autumn olive?
  • Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:29:36 -0400

Alan, I must live in a parallel universe, because my Autumn olives/Autumnberries have a very pleasant but fugitive fragrance that is underwhelming even downwind from a row of them in full bloom. And while the berries do indeed tend to be puckery unless dead ripe, your statement that they have high levels of alum is news to me; I don't recall ever seeing alum mentioned in even very detailed analyses of the fruit.

However, supposing your comment about Hidden Springs's cultivars is accurate, how does that make them unsuitable for juice or jelly? I've never made preserves from them because the fruit is too soft, but the juice and jelly are delicious. I make at least six and often more than a dozen cases of Autumnberry jelly every year, and generally by late spring I've been cleaned out by friends, family and the patrons of the bed & breakfast across the way. I'm still waiting for my first complaint.

Hank Burchard
Pecker Wood Farm
7b central Virginia
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 13:14:44 -0400
From: "Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>
Subject: [NAFEX] autumn olive not fragrant?
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
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<1f544d60809061014j1c81058ayf2fec91dc275859b@mail.gmail.com>
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While I realize that plants perform differently depending on their
environment, if you have an autumn olive without a very heavy, and to most,
very pleasant fragrance you don't have an autumn olive plant or you don't
have a nose that functions normally or one of us lives in a separate
universe. I would bet it's the first.

I used to grow a couple Hidden Springs cultivars, and while the fruit was
much larger on both than the native seedlings around here, I found it
useless for juice or preserves because of the high level of alum. I keep a
few plants on the forest edge to serve my various pollinators who just love
the extremely fragrant flowers. It's a very enjoyable fragrance to me as
well.
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