Berry season has begun. I begin thinking about  berry season about in February, when I start hearing  the humming of the hummingbird wings, as  they flutter around the forest, between all the  salmonberry flowers. That’s when I realize that  winter’s almost over and berries will soon appear  everywhere. We have so many berries here in the  Coquille Valley, how lucky are we! Under the forest  canopy we have salmonberries and black and  red huckleberries. At the forest edge and on roadsides  we have thimbleberries, black raspberries,  blue elderberries, dewberries and blackberries  galore. From now till November everywhere I go  has some berry foraging included along the way.

In the garden, ripe strawberries are beginning to  appear, and its time to start conjuring methods for  covering the blueberry bushes with bird netting, if  we want to have a chance at any ripe berries. But  besides blueberries and strawberries, there are  many other kinds of berries that easily grow here.  If you have time to grow anything, berries are a  great place to start. Many kinds of berries will  both produce relatively quickly after planting  (compared to fruit/nut trees), and tend to be a  highly nutritious food source. And, of course  being perennials, you would only need to plant  them once, and they will keep bearing year after  year.

Red raspberries are delightful to eat, and have a  long fruiting season with everbearing varieties  from June into November. Raspberries grow so  well, that they can spread far and wide, if left  unchecked. Mowing all the way around them is a  good way to keep the patch the same size without  expanding, otherwise some kind of barrier is  advisable. Gooseberries and currants grow quite  easily, even in some shade. Jostaberry is a cross  between the two, which produces gooseberry type  fruits without any thorns. Elderberries of both  European and eastern species are extremely nutritious  (some would call them medicinal), and grow  very easily as well

Serviceberries are sometimes  found wild here, and are hence quite adapted for  us. They start producing in just a couple years  from seed! Their flavor reminds me of blueberries  mixed with almonds. Less common, but also nitrogen-  fixing as well as berry bearing are goumi and  autumn olive. Although wild blackberries are so  abundant, growing cultivated varieties makes for  more variety of flavors, a ripening season of 5  months or more, and keeps them close by, ready to  pick anytime. Marionberry is my favorite of these.  Some varieties are both thornless and have an  erect growing habit, so they can be trained as neat  freestanding bushes without turning into scary  thorny thickets.  I love mixing all kinds of these berries together,  like a berry salad. A few chopped nuts in there –  filberts or walnuts perhaps, and its forest food paradise…