Fruit of the Red-Flowering Currant

Day 295: Here comes that question again: "Are they edible?" (What is it with this compulsion most humans have to put things in their mouths?) In this case, I can answer "yes," although I do so with reservation. The fruit of the Red-flowering Currant is edible, but to my way of thinking, not particularly desirable. For one thing, the taste is rather insipid, but first you have to get past the sensation of dustiness, as if you'd picked them alongside a dry gravel road and hadn't washed them before popping a handful into your mouth. And then there's the fact that the pale blue skin of the berry is dotted with tiny, sparse black hairs which add to the impression of having licked a piece of dirty, coarse cloth or a fragment of your cat's sisal scratching post. If you want to call that "edible," go right ahead, but I'll leave them for the birds, thank you very much.

Red-Flowering Currant

Day 178: Even on a dismal, rainy day, Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is a cheerful sight. One of the earliest natives to flower, this shrub provides nectar for hummingbirds after a winter diet of tree sap and small insects. Yes, hummers eat bugs! But when the Red-flowering Currant comes into bloom, they will even ignore the feeders, preferring natural food to sugar water (humans could take a lesson from that, don'tcha think?) I have two bushes on my property. The one outside the kitchen door blooms first and is not located where I can easily watch for hummers, but when the one in front of the carport opens, the overwintering Anna's come to it in numbers. The flowers will be near their end when the first Rufous Hummingbirds show up, but by then, there will be other tasty food sources in my yard.

A Matter Of Tasteless

Day 307: You've heard it said that some things are a matter of taste. In the case of Red-Flowering Currant fruits, I'd amend that to being a matter of tasteless. A certain friend will no doubt argue the point with me, but I find these purportedly edible berries to be insipid with an afternote which can only be described as "dusty." Consequently, I have never gathered enough of them to try making jam or muffins, unwilling to waste the effort on something I feel is beyond all help. It just goes to demonstrate a maxim I have often repeated: "edible" and "desirable as food" are two entirely different things. Cardboard is "edible," but you wouldn't want a serving of it on your dinner plate.

Hummingbird Feeder

Day 177: The early-season hummingbird feeder is in bloom, attracting both Rufous and Anna's to its panicles of hot-pink flowers. They were drawn to my two bushes even before the buds had opened, hopeful of a sip of nectar as they probed the petals with their beaks. Although I keep glass feeders out year-'round (the Anna's hummers are here all winter), when the Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is in bloom, the kitchen-brewed syrup is largely ignored. This shrub is native to the area, and produces a less-than-palatable dusty blue-grey fruit which goes untouched by any of my resident birds. I'm sure some critter must eat the berries, but I don't know who.

A Matter Of Taste

Day 298: When Nature opens her larder and issues an invitation to partake of her provender, I am usually at the head of the queue with both hands and my mouth wide open to accept the gift. However, I take exception to the fruit of the Red-flowering Currant, a Pacific Northwest native purported to be edible. As I have often said, paper is "edible," but I wouldn't want it served up on my dinner plate. The same holds true for these insipid, dusty-flavoured berries. I have tried to like them, seriously tried. I've juiced them, jammed them, eaten them raw in the hopes I would develop a taste for them as I did for cilantro (which I now love), but no treatment or lack thereof has provided me with any reason to harvest them.The local birds seem to share in my opinion of the fruit, but since the hummers love to nectar at the flowers, I maintain two bushes. In all the years I've grown them, I have yet to see any evidence of any wild creature eating the currants. Thanks, Ma, but I'm going to continue to give this one a pass.

Hummers' Delight

Day 201: The planting hummingbird and pollinator gardens has achieved great popularity in recent years. Who wouldn't want to help the birds and bees? However, there is a factor which receives very little discussion proportionately, and that is that by selecting non-native plants, we actually may be doing more harm than good. Y'see, native species of things kinda go hand-in-hand. A certain type of bee is drawn to a certain type of plant for a reason. Perhaps the plant has developed a unique structure which only that bee can reach. The plant benefits because the bee pollinates it. The bee benefits because the plant provides a nutritional source. The plant is dependent upon the specific bee, although the bee is not so restricted. Given another more easily accessible means of obtaining nectar, the bee may forgo visiting the plant which is dependent on it. Non-native species can be (and often are) stronger attractors of insects. By drawing the pollinators to them, the native species go neglected, and therefore cannot reproduce. A notorious example of a strong attractor would be Buddleia, commonly called Butterfly Bush. The name says it all. Its scent draws butterflies from far and wide, pulling them away from the native plants they should be visiting. Likewise, Elephant-head Pedicularis is buzz-pollinated by specific bee species whose wings vibrate at exactly the right frequency to initiate pollen release. If non-native plants make up the bulk of your landscaping, you're creating the equivalent of wall-to-wall fast-food joints for pollinators. Give them some healthier options with natives. Rufous Hummingbirds love our Red-flowering Currants here in the Pacific Northwest.

Evidence Of Spring

Day 174: Evidence of the changing season is beginning to show up in the garden, at least between snow showers. Only today, I discovered the volunteer primroses lurking in the moss and the swelling buds of the Red-flowering Currant. While some things seem to be running late (the daffodils are barely budded), the Hellebore is more lush than it's ever been before. What phenologic cues are these plants taking, that some are in a rush to produce as many flowers as possible while others seem to be husbanding their strength? What do they know that we do not? Humans have become so divorced from Nature that our bodies no longer follow the map of the seasons, so separated from the rising and setting of the sun that we complain when compelled to change our clocks to another designation which, after all, is a purely artificial construct in the first place. We have, as a species, moved a long way into an imaginary world. We could do with a lesson from the flowers in how to judge when the time is right.

Ribes Sanguineum, Fruit And Flower

Day 331: Ribes sanguineum, the native Red-Flowering Currant so loved by hummingbirds that I planted two in my yard for my feathered friends' enjoyment, produces a dusty blue, freckled berry full of crunchy seeds. They are purportedly edible, but I find the lingering musty aftertaste undesirable. Some people in my acquaintance eat them, so a few years ago, I collected all my bushes produced and juiced them for jelly. The result, even though I mixed it with the berries of nursery-grown red-currant cultivar, still carried that dusty note. Lesson learned, I now prune the bushes back right after their blooming period is done, but a few fruits always manage to develop on the twigs I missed.

While I don't wish to eat products with preservatives and other chemical additives in them, there is a point at which harvesting "natural" foods passes into the category of "ridiculous." As I mentioned, some friends eat these, and even claim to enjoy them. Other friends (who will recognize the direction my finger is pointing) harvest the strangest greens for the table (notably Lapsana communis, an invasive weed). Thanks, but I'm not quite hungry enough to extend the "natural foods" fad far enough to encompass Nipplewort leaves or currants which leave a taste in your mouth like that you'd expect after bicycling down a dusty country road.

Currantly On Display

Day 155: The Red-flowering Currants are springing forth with pink buds now. Not to be confused with Red Currants (the "domestic" type which has greenish-white flowers, and which you'll find in my berry pen ), Ribes sanguineum is native to western Washington. It bears dusty blue fruits, long on seeds and short on flavour, although its hot pink flowers give it the redeeming merit of being a strong hummingbird attractor. In my yard, both Rufous and Anna's Hummingbirds will bypass the feeder, preferring to sip natural nectar from the early-season blossoms. I maintain two Red-flowering Currant bushes primarily for the entertainment of my little avian friends. The fruit is considered edible, but only once have I attempted to add the juice from the berries to a jelly. I found that the faint musty taste of the fresh berries carried over too strongly even when used as a small proportion in the jelly.

Red-Flowering Currant, Ribes Sanguineum

Day 186: I have friends who will tell you that the pale blue fruits of Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) are edible in the sense of "desirable as food," but I would use the word "edible" to describe them more as "something which will not poison you if you eat it." I have tried repeatedly to accustom myself to the taste, really I have, and have only found that the dusty appearance of the berries carries over to the palate in a way that is resistant to coffee, tea, water or Gatorade. That said, the flowers are lovely and the hummingbirds are drawn to them in droves, second only perhaps to the hardy fuchsias which come later in the summer. Still, it seems a pity that in this instance, I must reject Nature's provender when she lays it in such abundance at my doorstep. For me, these native plants must remain in the category of ornamentals. Perhaps I'm not sufficiently hungry.

A Currant Of A Different Colour

Day 286: While I am not especially fond of the fruits of Red-Flowering Currant straight off the vine, they make a passin' fair substitute for blueberries in muffins. However, this year's crop has a different destiny. I have had an astonishingly good crop of Gooseberries (four cups!) and a reasonable yield from the Red Lake Currants (another cup). Combined with these native fruits, I should have enough for a full-sized batch of mixed Ribes jam (Ribes sanguineum above, plus R. uva-crispa and R. rubrum). The currants will need to be cooked and strained to remove blossom ends and stems as if I was making clear jelly, but the gooseberries will be left "chunky" (cut in halves or quarters in some cases). Sanguineum is just starting to produce. I picked a half-cup this morning, and there are loads of unripe ones. The jam should provide a delicious combination of tastes which I'm betting most people wouldn't be able to identify.

Ribes Sanguineum, Red-Flowering Currant

Day 183: Ribes saunguineum (Red-flowering Currant) is native to the Pacific Northwest with a range which extends from British Columbia to California. Its rosy flowers occur in drooping racemes to be followed by dusty blue edible fruits. I use the word "edible" with some reluctance and will repeat here a variation of a phrase I used only yesterday: "edible" and "desirable as food" should not be confused. While the fruits of Red-flowering Currant are enjoyed by some who have developed a taste for their seedy, acrid pulp, I find them undesirable when fresh. However, they make a passin' fair substitute for blueberries when baking muffins, although you might wish to add more sugar to combat a lingering and somewhat musty aftertaste. That said, I do not grow them for the table; I grow them for the hummingbirds.

Whenever practicable, birds, bees and butterflies should be drawn to the garden with native species. To do otherwise, i.e., to plant non-native species known to attract avian and insect life, is to pull them away from their real work of pollinating and perpetuating the native plants of an area. When offered chocolate, which of us would not turn away from the peas and carrots on our plate in preference for it? Presented with sweeter, non-native fare, "the b's" will turn away from native wildflowers, leaving many unpollinated and non-reproductive; wildflower numbers decline, and "the b's" decline with them, unable to sustain themselves on non-natives which do not fill their dietary requirements. As the cycle repeats year after year, the effects become more noticeable, with improperly nourished birds, bees and butterflies becoming more susceptible to disease. That caution given, there is the additional reward of seeing a wider assortment of "b's" coming to a yard filled with native plants: rusty Rufous Hummingbirds hovering at these pink flowers just one example "currantly" occurring outside my window.

Red-Flowering Currant

Day 179: To every thing there is a purpose. While I don't consider the fruits of our native Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) a "table" crop, the plants bring a harvest of a different sort, and one which is both enjoyable in an aesthetic sense and beneficial to the garden as a whole. I speak not of berries, but of the hummingbirds who come to visit. I've never seen anything but Rufous here, although Anna's is fairly common at only slightly lower elevations, but Rufous I have in abundance, and you can't go out in the yard without hearing them cursing at each other. It's not a sound you'd expect from such tiny beings, not a dainty peep or a musical tweeted note but a short, sharp bark of sorts or, alternately, a buzz like a wood-rasp being drawn in short strokes: "tzzzup-tzzzup-tzzzup." Even when food sources are abundant, the hummers swear like sailors at their compatriots, unable to speak a sentence which does not include at least one avian f-word, vulgar little things.

Too Much Like Work

Day 306: I seldom see fruit on Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) in the backcountry because the critters think they're delicious. On the other hand, humans might have some reservations on the subject. The flavour is rather bland (I hesitate to use the word "insipid") but not unpleasant, and I suspect they'd make a good jelly if you were willing to pull the blossom ends off each berry. I planted a couple of bushes in my yard to provide nectar for hummingbirds (they are drawn to the hot pink flowers), and was uurprised when the plants yielded up roughly half a cup of fruit. Never one to forgo Nature's provender, I picked them and then set to the project of cleaning them. Analysis: the caloric benefit doesn't justify the effort for a snack. However, if you could collect enough to put through a food mill and then filter the mash through a jelly bag to get juice, it might be worthwhile. Somehow I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

May Day Bouquet

Day 200: Sound & Fury Morris is dancing the sun up at Gasworks Park in honour of May Day, and I will have been on the road for several hours before dawn. That won't prevent the May faeries from carrying out my instructions to leave this lovely May basket on your doorstep, though. Okay, in some cases it will arrive a little early; we must make allowances as the need arises. It would seem that the practice of leaving May baskets for friends and neighbours has all but gone by the wayside, in my opinion a sad thing for such a lovely old custom to fall from use. I have fond memories from my childhood of constructing paper baskets and filling them with pretty posies, sometimes purloined from the flowerbeds of the very neighbours who were the intended recipients of the baskets. And if no cultivated blossoms were to be had, there were always dandelions and forget-me-nots and the occasional fern to brighten someone's day with a floral consideration. It was the thought behind the remembrance: you are my neighbour and my friend. Here is a gift from a simpler time, my May basket for you.

Earth Day 2018

Day 191: Above any other motto which might apply to my life, Zeno's words are the light which guides me. I'm not the best example by any stretch, but I *try,* and that is something we all can do. It's hard to avoid plastics in this throw-away culture of ours, and it's next to impossible to function in a civilized country without consuming fossil fuels of one sort or another. While refusing plastic bags and committing ourselves to recycling are steps in the right direction, it is my considered opinion that our greatest impact might come from a willing reduction in consumerism. Consider what you're about to buy: do you really need it? Could you make do with a second-hand version? Will the old one suffice for another year or two, even though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the newest model? And consider what you're planning to throw away: do you know someone who'd make use of your unwanted items? Don't sell them. Pass them along, and break the "money chain" which drives the engines of consumerism. On this Earth Day, I offer another of my life-slogans: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." And don't think it doesn't make a difference. Even the small things count.

Easter Blooms

Day 185: The colour in my garden is patchy, but there's no denying that Spring has arrived. My earliest memories of Easter involved searching for eggs in my parents' garden, and I think it's fair to say that I was more entranced by the flowers than by the treats the famous Bunny had left beneath them. Invariably during my hunt, a few stems of Grape Hyacinth would be broken, and of course these were gathered up to be accompanied by a few deliberately-picked daffodils and the obligatory do-you-like-butter dandelions. Lilacs came later, in time for May Day, followed by the blood-red peonies which my father so dearly loved. Sometimes there were sweet peas, a plant I have never successfully grown here at the foot of the Mountain. Today, my complement includes daffodils and narcissi (we won't quibble over semantics), Fritillaria meleagris, grape hyacinth, pigsqueak (Bergenia), heather, a Patty Plant, wild currant, abundant hellebore and snowflakes. If the Bunny were to bring me eggs today, he'd have no trouble matching them to a hiding place, whatever colour they might be.

Currantly Showing

Day 149: "Currantly" showing in my garden, the first inklings of green on the wild currants. Later, they will bear drupes of hot pink flowers which the hummingbirds adore. As my readers may remember, I have planted a large portion of my garden with pollinator/hummingbird attractors. Most of the plants have been purchased, but a few like this are so common in the area that I've just relocated a few from the wild. In this case, the currants were brutally uprooted, as in "I pulled them up by the roots and stuck them in my backpack for the rest of the day." A little extra coddling was required to ensure their survival once I got them home. I let them stand in a bucket of water and let them rehydrate before planting them the following morning. Both sites I had chosen for their permanent homes were rather dry last summer, so I watered them frequently...and here is my reward! Stay tuned! You won't want to miss the main attraction!

Hummingbird Food

Day 188: Red-Flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is native to Washington, and grows as a sprangly shrub, eventually producing a crop of tasteless, insipid black berries with nothing to recommend them to humans. However, its flowers have an irresistible appeal to hummingbirds, and of course given that I am basing my landscaping/gardening around providing habitat and food for birds and pollinators, I simply had to have a currant somewhere in my yard. But where to get one without having to pay through the nose for a nursery-grown plant?

There is a verb in popular use among my friends, "to pip," i.e., sneak cuttings, snitch rooted specimens (never the entire plant, though!), or to otherwise "liberate" a specimen for the garden. The origins of "pipping" lie in another gardening friend's nickname. She's notorious for her ability to pocket slips from nursery stock, and has the skills to propagate almost anything she nicks. I'm not quite as good, although I've lifted a few cuttings from parking lots and such, so I've been watching for unattended currants along the roadside. I wasn't having much luck. The only ones I was finding were too big to dig. I wanted a plant with just a few stems, something I could prune and train without the need for major surgery. Evenutally, I found not one but two "pippable" specimens of just the right size. I brought them both home to keep my hummingbirds entertained.

Currant Events

Day 180: Staying abreast of currant events is very important because this occurrence means that the hummingbirds won't be far behind. Red-flowering Currant (Ribes sanguineum) is extremely popular with our tiny avian friends and they may often be seen hovering around the flower heads even before the individual blossoms have opened. The inflorescence of the Red-flowering Currant is its best feature. The small black berries are rather bland and uninspiring, if edible in a pinch. The plant itself is a woody shrub which grows to about eight feet in height.