Spring garden update - Leatherleaf Mahonia bushes
One of the earliest flowering plants in my garden has started producing fruit. These little berries can be harvested and made a jam or jelly out of. Looking like I should get a few dozen berries on each plant if I can keep the birds away, they will eat them as soon as they are ripe. When I do collect them, I plan on straining out the seeds and then cooking down the berry juice into a jam or jelly. Ive made it before and kind of tastes like cranberries. It has a dark red color to the liquid and its pretty interesting to work with.
The plant will start producing flowers around the first month of the year in January or February. Since then they have bloomed and my Mason bees visited many of them, along with other pollinators like honey bees. Since I have two of these bushes I hope the bees visited both so the fruit sets will be stronger.
The bark of this plant has always made me curious about it, inside its a bright yellow color similar to turmeric. But on the outside the patterns in its mature bark is quite interesting.
Many new leaves are forming along the trunk, since I moved the two plants they have more space to grow and now its leafing out in all new areas. When they were growing close together it worked for a few years but they quickly got big enough where each was growing into each other.
The leaves are covered in a fine layer of pollen, this is from all the trees near by and it covers just about everything this time of year. Its pretty amazing how much pollen builds up and something you can only experience living in a forest.
One of the flower sets that has fruit now growing on it. They will turn color when ready to harvest. Will need to keep an eye on them and pick them as soon as they are ripe and beat the birds to them.
Glad both bushes now have their own spots with more space. I think these plants may get alot bigger. From what I have read it can grow up to twelve feet tall. Since they are evergreen they might make a good privacy screen that bears fruit too.
I learned something new from you again... that the is such thing as a Leatherleaf Mahonia bush with berries that can be made into a jam or jelly!
When the berries are out, please do an update!
Have a nice day, @solominer!
Hah yup, I made some a year or two ago. Sometimes the birds beat me to the berries and get them before I can.
Ok will do! and thanks @silversaver888 hope you do too.
It must be nice living where you are.
I have many more years (25 years!) to work,
perhaps I shall buy a property where I can do some
of the things that you do!
It has its pros and cons where I live, I worked for over a decade in the information technology field, it helped me save up for investments that are now carrying me forward.
Best of luck, and maybe crypto will help you get there faster.
Hmmm... I was thinking about crypto!
Which three should I go for?
You may want to wait for a dip, but BTC, ETH, ZEN and Hive are my picks.
I didn't know Mahonia's berries were edible ! We have a lot of bushes here and it's my favourite one to photograph when the berries are purple, they are so lovely ! but I never thought of searching if it was edible...LoL...so after reading your post I made a search and found that seeds or berries eaten raw are toxic, only jelly or liquor can be made with the berries...😊
Hah yep, I learned about that from @goat-girlz and one year I made some jelly and it was really tasty.
Raw I have never tried them, always cooked it down so makes sense you have to process them.
Hope you collect some and try it for yourself.. just make sure you strain out the seeds.