SAND CHERRIES, BLUEBERRIES, AND KOLACHES

FLOWERS OF SAND CHERRY...

PLANTS GROWING LOW IN THE DUNE GRASS

BLUEBERRIES IN FLOWER...

LARGE BERRY BEDS ON THE BACKDUNE

HOME MADE CHOKECHERRY JELLY FROM VERDIGRIS, NEBRASKA

Monday,  8:00 AM.  48 degrees F, wind ENE, mostly light.  The sky is cloudy but should clear up as the morning progresses.  The humidity has risen to 88%, and the barometer continues to trend downward, currently at 30.07".  I am spending most of my time today in the yard and garden.  I have some herbs and annuals to plant, the lawn needs mowing again after all the rain, and there are always weeds to pull.
   Sand cherry, Prunus pumila, is another edible wild cherry that is in bloom.  Buddy and I found it growing in the beach grass on our walk on the beach yesterday morning.  Native to the dunes of the Great Lakes, and a few other rocky and sandy places in the Northeast and Midwest, it is a diminutive, mostly prostrate bush, often less than a foot tall, that grows in the dune grass.  The berries are blue-black when ripe.
   It was a tough winter and a late spring, and maple sugaring was pretty much a washout in our parts, but the wild blueberries now in bloom look like they will be easy picking and a bumper crop and provide something to put in the pancakes.
   The large beds of wild blueberries along the back dune at the beach were buzzing with bees.  I am going to keep a close watch on the ripening berries and get my share before the birds and bears get theirs.  The species of blueberry at the beach is probably Vaccinium angustifolium, in the heath family, the Ericaceae. Cranberries are in the same family.   I will try to spend some time verifying that identification when I go berry picking.
   After discussing wild chokecherries in yesterday's post I was pleasantly surprised to find homemade chokecherry jelly from Ma's Country Bakery in Verdigris, Nebraska, on the shelf at the Washburn IGA.  We tried it on toast for breakfast yesterday morning and it was delicious.  The pint jar was $5.65, which I thought pretty reasonable for a rare, all natural and very tasty preserve.
   Verdegris is a little town in the Northeast corner of Nebraska, just east of the Sand Hills.  It is on Verdegris Creek, where the chokecherries  grow wild along the banks.  Verdegris is the "Kolach capital of the world," according to their Chamber of Commerce boosters.  For the uninitiated, a kolach, or kolache, is a Check pastry that looks and tastes pretty much like a Danish pastry, but is a little more doughy and a little less sweet. I would be happy to try one with chokecherry jelly filling.