As we all age and our doctors implore us to pay more attention to diet and exercise, it’s only natural to examine how our diets stack up. There are the proteins, the carbs, the fibers and dairy, and they all have their place on the nutritional triangle.
But me — I’ve always been a pie guy. Yup, pie is my favorite food group. But when it comes down to it, I’ll take pretty much any fruit food from the garden whenever it’s ripe.
If you think about it, pie checks all the boxes. A good blueberry pie checks the fruit and veggie box. It has all those antioxidants. There are carbohydrates in good proportion (even the best crust should play second fiddle to the filling...) Heck, you even get a little protein from the blueberry seeds. Add a dollop of fresh whipped cream and you even get your dairy.
Could there be a more complete food?
So, the key if you’re a fresh pie person or a fresh preserves person, is to figure out how to craft your garden so it produces the longest continuous supply of fresh fruit. From blueberries to raspberries and blackberries, then on to peaches and apples, the season is full of opportunities. Why, I understand that people pining for a fresh strawberry pie but who find themselves short on berry harvest become so desperate that they resort to adding rhubarb. That’s pretty desperate if you ask me ... but I guess some people will do anything for pie.
But it's the early part of the season that has us pie people suffering. The weather is perfect. We can see the typical early fruits starting to form. But we just can’t quite find something for that early-season pie or preserves fix. But hold on, fellow pie-o-philes. There is hope out there.
Meet the honeyberry.
There is nothing about the honeyberry that makes sense — from a botanical pie-making perspective. The vast majority of closely related species don’t produce edible fruit at all. Some are a scourge on the American landscape because of their invasiveness. Yet honeyberry offers tremendous potential for home fruit cultivation in North American northern and mid-latitudes.
What is a honeyberry?
Taxonomically, honeyberry is a honeysuckle. That’s right, it’s related to our native vining honeysuckles that are so great for attracting hummingbirds to the garden. But honeyberry is also related to that much maligned (for good reason) Amur honeysuckle (L. maackii) that has been such a destructive invasive in much of eastern North America. But don’t let that scare you.
Honeyberry (Lonicera caerulea) is unusual in that its native distribution is what we in the plant world refer to as circumpolar. That means the species can be found in the northern parts of North America, Asia, and Europe. There’s lots of confusion and discussion in plant taxonomy literature as to whether there are multiple species or a single species with a few subspecies spread around the globe. But we’ll leave that discussion to the taxonomists. We’re here to talk about pie!
How big does honeyberry grow?
Growing to 4 to 6 feet tall and wide, honeyberry plants are quite adaptable to a wide range of soils. They perform best in full sun but will take some light shade. They have few major insect or disease pests. Established plants have successfully survived better than minus 40 degrees in winter.
Honeyberry flowers emerge in pairs in April and early May, in a white to pale yellow shade. They’re not much to look at and don’t have much fragrance. But the pie and preserve-making magic is in the berries that follow.
What does a honeyberry taste like?
Honeyberry fruits are best described as rather elongated blueberries with a similar color and texture, and a fairly tart flavor. Depending on the cultivar, the fruits can range from under one-half inch to about one inch long. And best fruit production comes when you plant more than one variety for cross-pollination. The fruits ripen quickly and the harvest season is short — usually about two weeks for a single plant — but when they’re ready, they’re ready. And you need to be ready, too.
At Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road in Crestwood, we have been evaluating about eight different varieties for the last five years, and of course, somebody has to go out there and harvest the fruit to make sure the flavor quality remains high. So, a few weeks ago I picked a big bag of fruit and brought them home for processing.
How do you make honeyberry preserves?
Now, I’ve made honeyberry pie in the past, and it was fabulous. So this year I decided to try something different. Rather than a cooked pie, I decided to make a small batch of preserves. A pot full of fruit and a few hastily measured scoops of sugar all mushed together with a wooden spoon and cooked for about 20 minutes to reduce the volume by about half ― and that’s all it took.
The great thing about this rather informal recipe is that it’s pretty much fail-proof. If you don’t cook it long enough, you end up with pourable preserves that are perfect over ice cream. Cook it a bit too long and it gets thick but melts beautifully over warm pancakes. Cook it way too long and you have super-food hard candies.
But you might be wondering if all this culinary splendor is worth the invasiveness risk posed by some other Lonicera species. Certainly, in the Kentucky climate invasiveness does not seem to be an issue. The species is very much a cold-climate fan and warm summers are not particularly conducive to spontaneous spread. And there are native North American populations of Lonicera caerulea. So far in our evaluations at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, we have seen no volunteer seedlings.
Honeyberry plants are becoming more available on the market these days and with just a little looking around, you can find a few to try in your garden. Once you try them, I think you’ll be hooked.
Paul Cappiello is the executive director at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, 6220 Old Lagrange Road,yewdellgardens.org.
