Thursday, October 13, 2011

Berry Hooks, Plums, and Black Hawthorn



Katrina and I biked out the Galloping Goose trail to scout out Black Hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii) bushes and see if the fruit crop was worth harvesting.  We passed several on the Goose just north of McKenzie, but the day was so beautiful we couldn’t stop ourselves from biking all the way to Langford.  On the way back I noticed all the nice Ocean Spray (Holodiscus discolor) suckers along the trail, and decided to cut a few to make berry hooks for pulling down high branches.  We also made some detours to look for acorns, but didn’t find any, however, we found a Plum tree that still had plums on it. They were very small and really high up, so we got to put our berry hooks to good use and collected enough to enjoy fresh for the next few days.  They are sweet and juicy, but unfortunately, lacked the fruit stone trait that makes Italian Plums so easy to pit and dry.  I took some photos of the Black Hawthorne, but the fruits are too dried and shrivelled to bother picking. Pin It submit to reddit