Huckleberries

The first experiment in this year’s garden was zapallito, and the second was huckleberry bushes.

I’m not much of a pie person, but when I read the post on My Communal Table about huckleberry pie, I was intrigued. The gift of frozen huckleberries was sent to this blog author by our mutual friend, Sarah Jolie, exactly the kind of grand gesture I would expect from Sarah.

This was posted over a year ago, but shortly thereafter I came across huckleberry bush seeds at Seed Savers’ Heritage Garden and bought a package. Last year I tucked them into an already crowded bed and though they tried valiantly to grow, I didn’t get any bushes.

This year I started early inside and had some spindly, rangy bushes to put out in early spring. However, the wind took a toll and I wasn’t sure any of them would survive the spring. But these are tough plants and they want to make fruit!

While I was waiting for the first berries to get ripe, the birds came along and started picking them off. I guess they weren’t going to get soft and juicy. So I started picking and letting them finish ripening on the counter. That seemed to be the encouragement they needed to put out tons more berries!

When these are ripe, I’ll have plenty for a batch of huckleberry jam. The recipe looks pretty much the same as the blueberry-rhubarb and I can’t wait to taste it. No strawberries this year, but the deep purple jam will carry us through to next year.