Tagged With: Fruit

Strawberries and Cream

Strawberries and Cream

Strawberries and Cream

One of life’s little pleasures.

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Crab Apples

Crab Apples

Crab Apples

Cathy and I took a nice walk at lunchtime today. I carried my camera and took a few pictures of various things—claret colored sumac leaves, porcelain berry, and some crab apples.

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Mont. Co. Agricultural Fair

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and Vegetables

Cathy, Dorothy, Jonathan, and I went to the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair this afternoon. I got a moderate thrill being a VIP of sorts, with my four free passes, won last year in a photo contest. That saved us $52 ($12 per person plus $10 for parking). We enjoyed the food and wondering around the barns, especially the rabbits and chickens. We made it up to the craft and photo buildings and looked at the produce and flowers that had been entered this year. I love the intense colors of the fruits and vegetables in this basket. Note that they may all look like vegetables to you, as that’s how most of these items are used, but technically, these are all fruits except the beets and onions.

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Viburnum Berries

Viburnum Berries

Viburnum Berries

I had a meeting in another building late this morning so I took my camera with me and wondered a bit on the way back to get some pictures. Most of them are of various fruits on the edges of the woods. There are a lot of Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) and they are all covered with their bright red fruits. After getting a few pictures of those, I took some of these Viburnum berries. In contrast to the inedible (to humans, anyway) honeysuckle berries, Viburnum berries are edible. I also took pictures of some wild rose hips and some wild grapes.

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Euonymus japonicus (Japanese Spindle)

Euonymus japonicus (Japanese Spindle)

Euonymus japonicus (Japanese Spindle)

The hedge. Along the north side of our property is a hedge of Euonymus japonicus (Japanese spindle, although I never really call it anything other than Euonymus). It’s pretty healthy and flourishes even in rough years. The deer seem to like it and when it’s in bloom, the entire hedge buzzes with hundreds of bees. The flowers are not at all showy, but they are quite sweet smelling and last for a few weeks. The fruit, shown here, is quite interesting, I think, and adds a small amount of color at a time of year when it’s very welcome.

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Nandina Berries

Nandina Berries

Nandina Berries

It started raining a few days ago and it’s been raining, off and on, since. Today was the wettest so far, with fairly heavy rain coming down all day. We were back over at &@x2018;the house’ today and I took a short break from going through things to walk around outdoors with my camera. There are some Nandinas onside the kitchen window and I took some pictures of the red berries on them. They’re pretty berries but I find Nandina to be a bit too tall for the location. They replaced azaleas that got about seven feet tall and were much thicker, so at least these can be seen through. The berries are certainly pretty in the rain.

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Fig Leaves

Ficus carica

Ficus carica

I was down at my mom’s after work and looked around for something to photograph. There isn’t really anything in bloom in her yard right now, but the leaves on the fig tree that dad planted caught my eye. The common fig, Ficus carica, is not completely hardy in our area but planted in a protected spot and given some winter protection, it can be successfully grown. My grandparents, in southern North Carolina, got a lot more figs off their much larger tree. This tree never produced enough figs on its own to make any significant quantity of preserves so mom had to supplement it with figs bought at the market.

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Fruit

Fruit - Bananas, Mandarins, and Apples

Fruit – Bananas, Mandarins, and Apples

I’m not particularly proud of this photo, taken in my kitchen this evening, but at least it keeps up my unbroken streak of taking a photo a day. You might be thinking, “if you’re going to be posting pictures like this, then I’m not sure how significant it is that you post one for every day.” There’s a part of me that’s very inclined to agree with you. On the other hand, if I had to say, “I’ve taken a photograph every day for over eight years with the exception of one day when I couldn’t find anything interesting,” well, that would just be annoying. So, here you are. Hopefully things will pick up from here.

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Gooseberry

Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)

Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)

This gooseberry plant (Ribes uva-crispa) was originally put in by Albert in their yard. After he passed away, Brady said I could have it and it’s growing in the back of our garden. It blooms fairly early for a fruit bush and the fruit ripens fairly quickly. I really enjoy gooseberry jam, as I like most things of a tart nature. One thing to watch for when pruning and picking the fruit from a gooseberry bush is the thorns. They are quite sharp and vicious. There used to be a federal ban on growing gooseberry and other Ribes species but that was lifted in 1966. A few states still prohibit the growth of some or all Ribes species but they are all legally grown in Maryland.

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Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry)

Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry)

Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry)

I’ve mentioned the beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) we have in our back garden so I thought it deserved a photo. Its berries are just about at the height of their beauty right now, so it seemed like the best time. As you can see, the berries are both beautiful and plentiful. Because this shrub blooms (and therefore sets berries) on new growth, it can be cut back fairly hard each autumn or early spring and it will still produce a good display. The flowers are not particularly significant, being tiny and very pale pink. The berries, as the name implies, are the reason to grow this native. It attracts birds, who eat the berries, which is also nice.

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Fragaria virginiana (Wild Strawberry)

Fragaria virginiana (Wild Strawberry)

Fragaria virginiana (Wild Strawberry)

I only took a few photos today, all in the back yard. Most of them were of the maple leaves that are starting to turn red, but really they have only just started and it’s premature to have fall-color photos. This is a wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana, also known as scarlet strawberry) growing and fruiting in the yard. This is a native herbaceous perennial and in the description on the Missouri Botanical Garden’s PlantFinder web site, it says they “spread indefinitely by runners that root as they sprawl along the ground.” They aren’t kidding. These will take over a yard. Also, “Cultivated strawberries found in stores are hybrid crosses between F. virginiana (native to North America) and F. chiloensis (native to western coastal South America including Chile) which combine the excellent taste of the former with the larger fruit size of the latter.”

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Crab Apples

Crab Apples

Crab Apples

There are a pair of sweet gum trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) a little before I get to work and I stopped today to take pictures of their leaves. Sweet gum generally has some of the best fall color around but I think it’s just a little early so they weren’t as good as they have been in past years. I’ll probably check again in a while. Before I got back in my car and headed the rest of the way to work I took a few pictures of the crab apples nearby. I think they look pretty good against the blue of the sky.

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Oranges

Oranges

Oranges

I’m not sure what I can write about today’s photograph. It’s orange and they are oranges. My understanding is that the fruit was named first and the color was named for the fruit. Oranges are something of a tricky fruit. They can look perfectly delicious on the outside and be dry or mealy on the inside. Alternatively, they can look pale and unappetizing and be juicy and delicious. The only way to find out is to peel them open and give them a try. These look good and are, in actual fact, pretty good. You might say they have appeal.

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Gooseberry Flower

Ribes uva-crispa (Gooseberry) Flower

Ribes uva-crispa (Gooseberry) Flower

The plant this gooseberry flower is on was one that Albert had growing in his yard. Brady left me dig it up before she moved out of that house and it’s done very well against our back fence. Dorothy made little tarts with gooseberries from it last year and it looks to have a pretty good crop again this year, if the number of flowers tells us anything. The flowers are generally considered insignificant, at least from an ornamental standpoint. They are quite small and not particularly showy except from very close but they are actually pretty little things. The gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) is native to Europe, N. Africa, and the Caucasus and is, as you’d guess, primarily grown for it’s wonderfully tart fruit. The leaves of gooseberries contain hydrogen cyanide, a toxin that, in sufficient quantities, is pretty bad for you.

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Ripe Gooseberries

Ripe Gooseberries

Ripe Gooseberries

The gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa) are just about ripe. The squerrals are eating them as they ripen up and I don’t think we’re actually going to get much of a harvest. That’s our own fault, because we haven’t protected them and aren’t going out each morning to pick them as they ripen up. I don’t mind, terribly, although I have been picking and eating them when I do go out. They are just the right combination of sweet and tart. If I had a bit of land and used some of it for vegetable gardening, I think I’d plant a row of these and put a net over them. I might put a net over this one next year, although it’s against the fence and that might make it tricky.

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Gooseberry Pie

Gooseberry Pie

Gooseberry Pie

After Albert died, Brady asked if I would like the gooseberry that he had planted. I took it and it’s doing really well in my back garden. It’s having a particularly good year and I went out and picked a quart of berries from it today. That was nowhere near all the berries, although because it’s situated against the fence, it’s a little hard to get to the far side of the bush. It’s also pretty well protected with spines and I think it might be worth actually pruning some stems off to get at their berries as well as to make room for new growth.

In the evening I made a crust and baked a gooseberry pie which I served with freshly whipped cream. I think that good vanilla ice cream would have been better, but I can’t say the whipped cream was bad.

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Blackberries

Blackberries

Blackberries

It’s been pretty warm the last few days. Yesterday was quite brutal and while this morning was a very pleasant, it warmed up a bit in the afternoon. After church we went to the Agricultural Farm Park and walked around a largish soybean field. Towards the far end of the field there were brambles growing with wild abandon and I took a few pictures of the berries. I’ve cut all sweets out of my diet and for now, I’m not eating even natural sugars, so that means no blackberries or raspberries for me. It’s a hard thing to walk past bushes of berries and just feast with mine eyes. But I restrained myself.

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