Replying to Avatar rev.hodl

Prolific and delicious wild autumn olive worthy of propagation

Autumn olive is a nitrogen fixing shrub with small edible berries. It's considered a weed for the most part but our sheep love to eat it. Most of the time the berries are small, astringent and sour. Lots of seed not much fruit. I've been tasting all the autumn olive over the years as it appears here on the homestead and never found any worth harvesting. Last season I found this autumn olive shrub loaded with large, sweet, mildly astringent berries. I tried to harvest some and plant the seed without any success. Thankfully this shrub is still prolific and as sweet as ever. I look forward to harvesting all I can as it fully ripens over the next week or so. I will dehydrate some and plant some.

#permaculture #permies #homesteading #grownostr #meshtadel #selfsovereignty #perennial #autumnolive #nitrogenfixer #foraging #wildforaged
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Jim 2y ago

Natures sour patch kids! To early and we cant handle it but if we get to them at the right time they are pretty good. Every shrib here seems to mature at a slightly different time as well. Not sure what thats about.

My youngest loves the wild ones though. I planted some "cultivated" varieties at my last place...sadly I never got to try them. Dont know if they were selected, bred, or what.

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rev.hodl 2y ago

This particular plant has berries that are hardly sour and only slightly astringent. It's berries are huge compared to all the others here and it's totally loaded for the last two years. I think it's worthy of making cuttings and sprouting seed.