Althouse: Say, can I have some of your purple berries?

June 16, 2016

Say, can I have some of your purple berries?

25 comments:

mezzrow said...: Berry good.; 6/16/16, 8:46 AM
Curious George said...: I put blueberries in my oatmeal every morning. They're a superfood. And tasty.; 6/16/16, 8:51 AM
Paul Kramer said...: ah...wooden ships.......; 6/16/16, 9:03 AM
Michael said...: This Is Just To Say
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold; 6/16/16, 9:04 AM
Meade said...: You are leaving? We don't need you?; 6/16/16, 9:09 AM
Ann Althouse said...: These are not blueberries.

Know your berries!

Meade grew these and got on a ladder to pick them. And he did the Crosby, Stills & Nash singing to go with it.; 6/16/16, 9:10 AM
Patrick said...: We had goose berries when I was a kid. I recall bushes, with no ladder needed for picking them. Those look like goose berries, so I am stumped!; 6/16/16, 9:16 AM
Wilbur said...: They're too purple to be redhaws ( childhood favorite for eating and slingshots).; 6/16/16, 9:43 AM
Irene said...: Huckleberry ... Pie?; 6/16/16, 10:19 AM
Meade said...: Mmm... love Huckleberry pie!
But I know you know it's too early for Huckleberries, Irene. Good try though.
These are native to Wisconsin and, obviously, are in season this month.; 6/16/16, 10:26 AM
Rick.T. said...: Amelanchier (Serviceberry); 6/16/16, 10:36 AM
Meade said...: "Amelanchier (Serviceberry)"

Also known as "Juneberry"

Winner — Rick Turley!; 6/16/16, 10:42 AM
Rick.T. said...: Send my prize pie to......

Amelanchiers are great four-season, pest free - unless you count fighting the birds for the berries - native large shrubs/small trees which are very much underutilized in the landscape. Congratulations on a fine choice of plant material.; 6/16/16, 11:07 AM
Curious George said...: Curious George said...
I put blueberries in my oatmeal every morning. They're a superfood. And tasty."

"Ann Althouse said...
These are not blueberries. Know your berries!"

I didn't say the photo was of blueberries. I know they aren't blueberries. I simply said I put blueberries on my oatmeal every morning.; 6/16/16, 11:22 AM
Pamela said...: The birds love my service berry tree. I have discovered that service berries are very tasty right off the tree, but not if you pick a bunch and let them sit in the bowl. They lose their zest.

They sure reseed easily. I vacuum them out of the grass. YES! I do.; 6/16/16, 11:44 AM
rhhardin said...: Thruber or Kliban or somebody had a cartoon of an old guy with bucket hailed by old woman on porch with gun and warned not to pick the elderberries.; 6/16/16, 12:01 PM
rhhardin said...: Smooth Sumac is the only plant I've found that works for feeding birds in the winter.

They eat everything else by fall.; 6/16/16, 12:03 PM
Rick.T. said...: rhhardin said...
Smooth Sumac is the only plant I've found that works for feeding birds in the winter.

They eat everything else by fall.

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Depending on your zone beautyberry, deciduous hollies, hawthorns, and aronias all typically are not bird favorites until everything else is gone so good for winter. The beautyberry is another great underutlized native plant that is particularly ornamental but can be prone to deer browsing according to the literature. However, my deer cannot read so they leave it alone. The other suggestions can be problematic in a typical urban or suburban garden for various reasons.; 6/16/16, 12:30 PM
eddie willers said...: Meade grew these and got on a ladder to pick them. And he did the Crosby, Stills & Nash singing to go with it.

If he was hip, he would have sang the Jefferson Airplane version.; 6/16/16, 2:18 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: I like a contest like this.; 6/16/16, 6:43 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: How did they taste, Meade?; 6/16/16, 6:45 PM
Meade said...: Sort of like ambrosia only not as cloyingly sweet. And fruitier.

Seriously, to me they taste like a combination of perfectly ripe blueberry, cherry, and plum. i'd eat them everyday if only the damn cardinals and robins and squirrels would leave them alone. The robins are the worst. They eat the lower ones first just to spite me, saving the ones at the top to become dead ripe and fermented. Then, drunk and belligerent, they give me the one-wing salute and dive bomb me. Laughing their evil little robin laugh, they tweet something that sounds like hey you stupid moron right-wing tea bagger, go the hell back to Indiana where you came from. I say hey, I planted that tree, you non-native fancied up thrushes and they just crap on my car.

Robins are jerks. I hate them. I'd shoot them with my AR-15 if this wasn't such a stupid gun-free zone we live in.; 6/16/16, 7:34 PM
Meade said...: Maybe I could borrow Rick Turley's cats to get rid of the robins.

But then I'd have cats.
:); 6/16/16, 7:36 PM
Rick.T. said...: Meade said...
Maybe I could borrow Rick Turley's cats to get rid of the robins.

------------------------------------

Unfortunately the only "birds' Murphy is interested in are marshmallow Peeps. Seriously. I took this picture right after finding out he had ravaged a package of them I had been aging like fine wine to a nice chewy consistency.; 6/17/16, 8:27 AM
Meade said...: I like Murphy! And Murphy is a terrific name for a cat (or dog.); 6/17/16, 9:16 AM