We were discussing this in another thread. It looks like I was going to try growing it a few years ago when I found it for sale on the direct gardening website (which has since been merged with Gurneys), but either I didn’t get it, or it didn’t grow. Anyway, after @Mary Stetler said that she had some, and how nutritious the berries are, I started reading more about it and watching youtube videos. I ordered some cuttings, and if I can get them rooted, I will plant them out front near the road as a short hedge. They have beautiful white flowers in spring, the abundant berries late summer, and bright red foliage in the fall, so they will have several good features.
I didn't want to start a new thread as the one here on aronia berries might still interest people since it is new. But wanted to say our lambs quarters are absolutely delicious right now. they taste like aparagus. This woman grows hers in a tub. Ours grow wild in our garden. I will harvest most of them and the nettle and put them up before we plant 'real' vegetables.
My Aronia cuttings arrived today ! they look really fresh cut, and were packed with wet dirt , newspaper, and then wrapped in plastic; so they traveled well on the trip here. I am trying several methods for rooting them. There were at least the 12 that were supposed to arrive, and maybe a few extra, although some are really tiny-thin, not much larger than electric fence wire. I have some in a milk jug dome, some without a dome just in dirt, and a few in water, so hopefully at least some of these will work for rooting them. How do you root yours, @Mary Stetler ? When I was reading and watching the videos, it looked like people used all of these methods, and they all worked. Another thing that was recommended, once you have your own plants, was to mound soil and mulch around the base of the plant, and some of the branches will root themselves from being covered up with the dirt. Then you just pull the dirt away and cut off your already rooted cutting and plant it.
What do people do with Aronia berries? My son raises them and says they taste "not very good". Wine, jelly, or...?
What i have read, if they stay on the bush longer, they get a little sweeter, but will always be somewhat astringent. The videos are of people juicing them or cooking the berries. More like you would do with a cranberry or an elderberry. Some people do eat them fresh, according to what I have been reading. Lots of flowers for the bees, and the birds do eat the berries, although not as much as they like blueberries, apparently. I have been waiting for @Mary Stetler to tell us what she is going to do with hers.
Apparently I am going to feed them to the deer. Lots of times things get sweeter after a freeze. What I do with a lot of small fruits is squeeze the pits out of them and make a preserve or dry them. maybe with a bit of sweetener. Last year the wild cherries were exceptional and I didn't realize it till it was too late. I wished I had put sheets under the trees. There were so many of them and they were quite tasty. Unusual for all the trees to be that way. The ground was covered with them. I would have dried them all. But normally, they are a bit tart and sometimes bitter. Maybe aronia berries will be like that ocassionally.
The wild cherries we have are on trees that grow to 40 ft and yes the birds eat them. But there were so many of them last year, I didn't realize it. Most people don't like them because they are small, black and fall on driveways and are tracked into houses and onto carpets The small pits stick into treads. I can usually only pick the branches that I can bed down with a tool. They are often bitter but when the climate is just right they are yummy but small.