autumnberry

I equate the back half of my property to the side of a mountain. I'm probably being overly dramatic but it does feel that way when I climb it. When I brought my father up there, he said it would make a fine vineyard. He was right— it had good drainage and a southwestern exposure, but I had different kinds of fruit in mind: cherries, pears, apples, plums… I wanted to plant a mountain orchard.

The second spring after we moved in, my husband and I cleared an area on the lower rise. We took down a few mature trees, numerous saplings, and a ton of unidentified shrubs that dominated the understory. They were attractive as far as wild shrubs go— long arching branches, silvery leaves, and insignificant yellow flowers that perfumed the mountain with their sweet scent. I would have hesitated to cut them down, but honestly, they were everywhere.

That spring, I planted six semi-dwarf fruit trees with the intentions of planting six more the following year. It was too far from the house to bring in water, but I managed to get a large tub up to gather rainwater for dry spells. That first year, I checked on the trees frequently, though there was little to do except to adjust their supports and weed around their base.  By midsummer, the stumps of the shrubs that had been cut to the ground were sending out multiple shoots that began to encroach on the trees. It seemed that the more severely they were cut, the more vigorous they became. They were tenacious— I gave them that— but so was I. That first year I was confident that I had them under control [insert Nature's mocking laugh].

It was August of the following year when I finally made my way back up to the orchard. Plans to plant more trees were thwarted; other things took priority. In the wild overgrowth that ensued in my neglect, I had to look hard to find the fruit trees. Half of them were dead and the remaining three didn't look so good. I suppose that I should have felt defeated, but I had more invested in the orchard than the hours of labor and cost of the trees— I was chasing a dream of my own private Eden; trying to fulfill a plan that would bring me closer to the land and further from the grid. Stubbornly, I resolved to reclaim the orchard and waged a quiet, but violent war with pruning saw and shears.

I went back to work full-time the following year. In the restaurant biz, that means 14-16 hour days, leaving little free time for gardening. I didn't make it back to the orchard until late in the season, then I wished I hadn't. It's never easy to admit defeat. Or to let go of dreams.

I let a few years pass before I ventured back up the mountain. With the fruit trees dead, there didn't seem much point— until last month, when I found a reason to return.

You see, I finally identified the tenacious shrubs. It turns out that my nemesis and the squasher of my mountain orchard dream is the Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)— a close relative of Russian Olive, a native of Asia (Aki-gumi) and cultivated by the Europeans who introduced it to North America. Originally intended as an ornamental, its tolerance of a wide range of environmental conditions and nitrogen-fixing root nodules that allows it to thrive in poor soil and drought, made it attractive to public works horticulturists, who planted it along highways to prevent erosion and attract wildlife. They didn't account for its highly viable seed, spread by birds, and its tendency to overcrowd native species, landing it squarely on the federal invasive species list. Here, in the Northeast, Autumn Olive is classified as an invasive exotic gone feral. I can certainly vouch for that.

It does, however, have a saving grace— it produces edible fruit.

In late fall, the green drupes begin to blush. Their color deepens and darkens with the onset of cold. When green, they are tannic and unpalatable— much like raw green olives. As they ripen, the tannins give way to tartness and eventually sweetness, which doesn't occur until they are threatened by frost. When fully ripe, as they are now, they straddle a balance of sweet and tart, with a flavor that is reminiscent of pomegranates, currants and cranberries. 

The fruit has captured the attention of the USDA, who gave it a new name, Autumnberry, and opened an Autumnberry research lab in hopes of promoting their rich nutritional value. The berries contain high levels of vitamin A, C, and E, as well as flavonoids and carotenoids, but it is their particularly high levels of the antioxidant lycopene that makes them unique. With 30-70 mg of lycopene per 100 g of fruit, it surpasses (by up to 17 times) the levels found in raw tomato. 

And so, after identifying the plant and learning of its edible fruit, I watched and waited. At least once a week, I climbed the mountain to check on their progress and taste for the developing sweetness. Last week, on a cold, windy day following a light frost, they were ready. I picked a few quarts, forcing myself to stop when my bare fingers became too cold and stiff to continue. It felt completely surreal and unnatural to be harvesting fruit in November— but aren't the sweetest things in life the ones that take you by surprise and not the ones you plan for? And even though Autumnberry robbed me of my dreams of cherries, pears, apples, and plums, I forgive them because— in an entirely unexpected way— I have my mountain orchard after all.

aged gouda
 autumnberry cheese
 comice pear
 pumpkinseed oil