Serviceberry season
Jul 6th, 2008 by Laura Reinsborough
Up until last week we were so distracted by starting up our residential fruit tree project that we hadn’t harvested anything from Spadina, but this week that all changed.
We harvested arugula, rhubarb, green onions, mint, parsley, sage, and summer turnip. And best of all, we tried our hands at picking the serviceberry tree.
Serviceberries go by many names (shadbush, saskatoon berry, Amelanchier, juneberry). Each has a fascinating story behind it, like how they’re called shadbush because the trees bloom when the shad swim upstream. It’s a bit hard to grasp that concept in Toronto what with our tendency to bury creeks, but as not far from the tree harvests more and more, we are becoming tuned into the city’s natural cycles. Serviceberry is a native species, so its benefits go far beyond producing food.
We sold most of the produce at market, offering the serviceberries as a sampler. Many market-goers had never tried them before, but were soon asking for a second or third handful. So far, we haven’t had any residential serviceberries signed up for us to harvest, so if you know anybody with a juneberry on their property, please let us know.
This is way out of your range, but a friend and I just stumbled on a whole semi-abandoned orchard of serviceberries on the Waterfront Trail in south Etobicoke…just starting to ripen when we were there two days ago.
It’s not ‘semi-abandoned’ but a secret
jem to those in the neighborhood.
Lots of people living close by come to
pick the serviceberries