Chokecherry jam and maybe even some syrup is what I am canning this morning. How many batches depend on how hot the kitchen gets while I am doing it. This is one of our favorite fruit delicacies. I was a little shocked that we actually had zero left in the pantry. So, I guess the timing of the harvest is absolutely perfect.
You can see that we (Pete and Ben, not me) harvested about 3 gallons from our hedge outside the garden. This is one of my favorite painting buckets that I use for harvesting smaller amounts in the garden. With all the stains, it is not a bucket that others want to take home so it has been my garden friend for years.
A friend and I used to walk around and pick berries together but we have both aged and we do it much less now. It is much easier to just pick right here at our property anyhow. This chokecherry and elderberry are really the only berry bushes that the wildlife pretty much leaves alone. Maybe it is because they are so sour.
Anyhow, almost all the other berries around are terrorized and murdered by deer around us. Thank God for tall garden fencing and venison production.
I remember reading about native uses in curing beef, and also there are some cyanide warnings with bark collection, so you can’t use a juicer on them.