Sunberry/garden huckleberry

[Rena]

Has anyone ever grown it? It states on the packet, that it should be treated as the same culture as tomatoes. I am wondering do I get fruit first year? How is the taste? Thanks -Rena The seeds came from SSE

[buttercup]

I grew huckleberries from seed savers exchange two years ago. The plants did well and produced a lot of fruit by the fall. The problem was they didn't taste good. Everyone who tried one spit it out. I tried making jam but ended up using twice as much sugar as I planned on. I gave some out and threw the rest in my compost pile. Even my chickens didn't care for them. Maybe it was the variety I grew.

[PaddyMc]

I've grown Garden Huckleberry, Sunberry, Chiquilite, Jaltomato and Wonderberries. The only one I really like is Wonderberries (and I like them quite a bit). The others are on a spectrum from tasteless to bad. For wonderberries to be good they need to be REALLY ripe. Borderline mushy. Just let them sit on the plant for as long as possible.

[pmcgrady]

Garden Huckleberry needs to be picked when ripe, they turn from glossy berries to a almost grey purple non glossy color when ripe, they still need quite a bit of sugar if you are making jelly.

[charline]

I have Sunberry in the third season , They pop up everywhere. I love them , sweet but a very special flavor. My friends and occasional customers also like them and even ask for them. But they are very small and a pain to pick.

[NarnianGarden]

I have grown Wonderberries (seed from Baker Creek) and loved them; although I noticed something I thought to be genetic variance, as one plant two years ago produced tasteless fruits....

[Keen101]

A few years back sunberry/wonderberry just appeared in my weedy corn patch. Apparently the mice planted them. They are an interesting plant. They seem to only germinate and grow in warm summer heat, so treating them like tomatoes makes sense. Mine has self seeded/planted every year since. I even have a few in pots that i spread seeds to.

This year i am trying the orange fruit variety from baker creek. Perhaps i will try to cross the two together.

[NarnianGarden]

Keen101, I have those orange fruit variety seeds too... Will try them this season!

[Darren Abbey]

I haven't tried any of the named varieties being mentioned, but I have been sampling the wild forms of the Solanum nigrum complex (the group encompassing the varieties mentioned) wherever I live. Plants in South Texas produced sweet/tart berries, while those up in MN produce something like a floral-tomato-but-not-sweet berry.

I've been meaning to visit South Texas again, so I could collect some seeds of the tasty forms I remember from there.

[NarnianGarden]

The orange colored variety that I have was marketed as a new exciting novelty. It is supposed to be full of vitamin C, and delicious.. but for some reason, when the seed packet arrived, it included a warning - of a potentially toxic variety!!
I get it that they want to 'play it safe'... I just find this confusing. (yes, I did contact the customr service and got a not-so-nice reply back... implying that I must be stupid..)

Anyway - I will try the berries myself, but most likely won't serve to anyone outside my family.. that way, I am not responsible for anyone's allergic reactions or worse.

[Darren Abbey]

There's so much misunderstanding about the plant, so they're just covering themselves. Some people seem to have a bad reaction to the plant... but it has been very difficult to find verifiable proof of toxicity of this plant.

I wrote a blog post about some aspects of the story a couple years ago: http://the-biologist-is-in.blogspot....ightshade.html

[NarnianGarden]

Yes, it's the Otricoli variety I will try this year. However, it's not easier for me to think that they're edible - I grew up with decorative poisonous berries around me (honeysuckle I think) and learned to avoid anything orange, while it's the black and blue ones that were for food (blueberries)! lol