Boyle Berry Bush

As a kid, I remember watching an ad on TV that showed a Florida resident in their backyard, picking, and eating an orange off their own orange tree. I thought it was so neat to be able to eat fruit from your own land. As a farm kid in Saskatchewan, the closest we came was chewing a handful of wheat until it turned into something vaguely resembling gum …

I do remember visiting Uncle Graham and Aunt Dorothy in Regina and going sasktoon picking in the Qu’Appelle Valley, near Lumsden. That is probably where I learned the pleasure of grazing berries.

For the past 30 years we have been blessed to live on the outer edge of Canada’s Boreal Forest (one of the largest and most important ecosystems on earth). And yes we, too, can graze, in season, from our own berry bush.

Clockwise from upper left:

This is the best crop of saskatoons that I have ever seen.
Blueberries are more plentiful than usual.
The chokecherries will be ready in a few weeks. Great for jelly and pancake syrup.
Pin cherries are having a good year. But you need a lot of them to make jelly (and you have to race with the birds to get there first!)
The raspberries are not native to BoylePark, but someone had planted them half a lifetime before we arrived. They are having a very good year!

Boyle Park Editorial Policy: “We don’t necessarily agree with what you say, but we will defend to the death your right to say it.” (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906)