My question is are the huckleberries as in Shumway's what the article in this month's Countryside? I was under the impression that the ones in Shumway were an annual plant. Has anyone grown the annuals and what type of luck did you have. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), October 12, 2000

Answers

Garden huckleberries are probably what you are talking about. I don't have the shumway's catalog on hand, but if it is anything like Gurney's they are the garden huckleberries. These are an annual, related to tomatoes and eggplant,you start them like tomato plants, and once they are frosted they've had it. I've never actually tried them, because we have real huckleberries here, but read about them once in an old Mother Earth news magazine. Seems like they had to be cooked to be palatable and useful, if I remember correctly. The real huckleberries are a perennial bush, related to blueberries. for some reason they haven't been grown much in nurseries, etc. I believe I've heard that they just don't do as well under domestic cultivation. I have read of people saying that huckleberries are very seedy- I think this must be the garden huckleberries, because the genuine article has very tiny, hardly noticeable seeds.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), October 13, 2000.

I grew the annual type this year -- they were disappointing, but then, so were the tomatoes. They didn't get very ripe/sweet and had a slightly bitter undertone I didn't care for. I suspect that you need more sun and hotter conditions, same as tomatoes and we were cold all summer (northern WI). Ones I've had grown 90 miles further south were sweeter, but theirs weren't good this year either...

I'm not impressed. They're kind of a novelty item to grow, but the flavour isn't inspired, and as far as jam making goes, I don't think I'd waste my time or sugar. I planted elderberries instead. They grow wild like weeds around here, so I rooted those out and put in good named cultivars for jelly/jam fruit. I intend to start blueberries, since this is excellent country for them...perennial huckleberries grow wild here along with blueberries and they seem a little seedier than the blueberries, but comparable. I'm putting in Juneberries/Shadblow as well for the fruit.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), October 13, 2000.