picking goumi berries

picking goumi berries

glistening with raindrops 

after a summer shower

A short rain shower brought a refreshing coolness after days of heat, so I make a counterclockwise circuit around the inner ring of our permaculture garden, the area inside the low fence that surrounds the house. The wet soil makes it easy to pull weeds and of course I get to browse on berries while I work. There are a few strawberries hidden under leaves that the birds didn't find, the blueberries are just turning blue, something has eaten the leaves off the currant bushes, leaving the red currants, the saskatoon has some red and purple berries for the first time ever, and the gigantic goumi bush is absolutely loaded with small red berries, glistening with raindrops.

The berries look like small oval cherries and up close they have a silvery speckled surface, giving the shrub another common name, Cherry Silverberry. I pick a handful and pop them in my mouth. They're sweet but have a slightly tart aftertaste. (Some varieties are sweet without the tart.) The large seeds have pointed ends and are covered with  crevices. Birds have been eating the bright red berries, sometimes just pecking part of the berry and leaving the rest hanging. This one looks like a football player with a red helmet and face guard.

Or sometimes leaving behind some of the smashed pulp and the seed.

Insects also like the berries. Here a pill bug is having a snack.

Other insects use the goumi bush for a different purpose. These eggs are on the speckled underside of a leaf. They look like tiny silver batteries crowned with bristles.

Some of the berries still bear the dried up remains of the flowers.

I decide to pick some to dry like raisins, hoping that will make them sweeter. So I fetch a little bucket and start harvesting from the branches that are hanging over the fence.

Many of the berries hang in clusters, so I can gather as many as eight with one hand. I feel like a kid, raindrops running down my bare arms, sucking berries and spitting out the seeds. What makes me stop is not my full bucket, which I could easily empty, but the mosquitoes landing on my bare arms and the back of my neck. I don't want to become someone else's snack, so inside I go.

One of the reasons I included goumi in our permaculture garden is that the berries are high in vitamin A and E, bioactive compounds, minerals, flavinoids and proteins. The fruits and seeds are a good source of essential fatty acids as well, which is very unusual for a fruit. Their lycopene content is the highest of any food. I've read that goumi is being used in the prevention of heart disease and cancers and in the treatment of cancer. Cooking the fruit increases the lycopene content, so I'm going to cook these berries before I dry them.