Consider the garden huckleberry

Thanks for stopping by!  I've moved the full post over to my current blog, A Housewife Writes.

The problem with growing your own fruit is that you have to wait years after planting to get a decent-sized harvest.  Enter the garden huckleberry.  This isn't the sweet wild berry that resembles a blueberry that you are most likely thinking of.  Garden huckleberries are firm, shiny, black and grow in clusters on bushes approximately the size of a tomato plant.  (For my "way up north" readers, think of big crowberries.)  Planted in the spring, it will begin producing mid-summer and yield an abundance of berries until frost.

You may read (as I did) that this berry is a great substitute for blueberries and can be used the same way.  Not even close.  Make sure that the recipes are specifically meant for garden huckleberries.  Tossing a handful of these into a batch of pancakes would result in mutiny at the breakfast table and you'd find yourself leading the charge. 

It is absolutely essential that they be cooked--boiled, actually--and they need some added acidity, like lemon juice.  When properly prepared, however, it is great as an ice cream topping, layered into a coffee cake, and makes a beautiful purple-filled pie.  Continued on the Housewife Writes blog....