19/09/2026
We have a lot of Autumn Olive at Beech Hill Heaven! Does anyone have suggestions on how to harvest the berries before the birds get to them?
I see folks spend a small fortune on fancy berry canes, babying them for years just to get a handful of fruit the birds usually steal anyway. Meanwhile, there’s a wild, silver-leafed shrub growing all over the country that people spend weekends trying to hack down and eradicate. I used to be one of them. Then I found out this prolific nuisance produces gallons of tart, free fruit that happens to have 18 times more of a crucial antioxidant than garden tomatoes. The seeds are even packed with omega-3s. Instead of fighting it, we just started harvesting it. We make jam, fruit leather, and even a rather spectacular homemade ketchup out of it. Best part? Eating the berries actually stops the birds from spreading the seeds further. That's my kind of conservation. If you've got this stubborn troublemaker growing on your property edges, put the loppers down and grab a bucket. I wrote down exactly what to look for and how we process them.
