That’s what I tried too, but it’s hard to peel off all the green parts so I just try to bite the yellow parts, eating around the green part.
My thinking is the Fruit & Seed Gels preserve the viability of seeds even if fruits are frozen but I haven’t tested this yet. I saw Naranjillo fruits frozen at my International Grocery Store & wasn’t sure if the seeds inside would be viable. A Solanum fruit is a Solanum Fruit so if Tomato seeds remain viable after freezing than so would Naranjillo seeds too! Seed vaults also freeze their seeds but they freeze them dry without seed gels!
In some florida areas, the everglades tomato is a wild edible/weed people forage for. There’s no reason your garden veggies can not grow like “weeds” or wild edibles too! That’s what makes Landrace Gardening so Awesome!
Ooh you found Chokecherries in your area? That’s a plant I wanted to get seeds for & Try graft/crossing with Plums, Peaches & Cherries. Imagine the fruit cluster has peach sized cherries on it!? Just to clarify, your chokecherries are Prunus virginana & not Prunus serotina cuz the the 2 often get confused for each other. Do the sepals persits or no?
Well, you’ve definitely gotten chokecherry pits from me! You were the one who pointed out that they were definitely Prunus virginiana and not an Aronia sp, in fact.
Yes but I can’t tell from the seed if it didn’t have the whole fruit to go with it. I needed to see the fruit sepals other wise I’m just left with Prunus spp. as the identification.
Oh, I see. (Laugh.) Definitely no sepals! Those seeds I sent you that I originally thought were an aronia, I am now confident are from Prunus virginiana.
Fantastic! Thank you for confirming.
Now I wonder if Prunus virginiana form different locations taste different too?
I’ve tried Prunus serotina fruits, some were very nasty & others were enjoyable so there’s enough taste diversity. I wonder if anyone has tried crossing both species together?
There must be genetic variability in Prunus virginiana, because the tree I harvested fruits from in 2022 offered a flavor that was almost the same as blueberry . . . while the tree I harvested fruits from in 2023 offered a flavor that was almost the same as cherry. (I gave you seeds from the 2023 tree – I didn’t save any of the seeds from the 2022 tree, like an idiot. Don’t worry, I know where that tree is, and I want to go back this year to get more!)
Awesome! Get as much cool flavor as possible.
It could also be different genetics Blet their fruits differently. Probably a mix of this & actually flavor of the cherries.
If I recall correctly, Native Americans would wait till the berries turned fully black or in the more nothern climates wait till frost/cool weather came around to improve/soften their flavor.
Maybe this explains the name Chokecherry, could most people be harvesting them at the wrong stage? or do different regions have Prunus virginiana trees that blet nicely vs those that don’t.
Probably & those soil types can select for different flavors too or the different ways those same flavors get expressed.
Generally most times the same wild species taste the same but sometimes the flavor difference is Night & Day.
I harvested chokecherries from both trees in mid-August, after they’d just finished ripening. Two weeks after that, they turn into dried-out, wrinkly things that don’t look appealing. (I haven’t tasted them dried out, though – it’s possible they’re still good.)
I doubt they’d still be on the trees in October in order to be there for frosts – by then, they would all be lying smashed into the dirt, food for bugs and maybe birds.
I’m noticing that most fruits in my climate can be harvested bletted as late as January if they ripen around October. Most fruits that ripen September or earlier can’t. This has been consistent for both wild and cultivated fruits – October-ripening apples and pears and plums, for instance, can usually be left to blet. September-ripening (or earlier) apples and pears and plums will go rotten if left to blet.
In my experience, the sand plum (Prunus angustifolia) can taste very different from stands in the same county, but different locations, despite being the same species. It could be growing conditions, could be slight genetic differences, but there are definitely differences in taste between different thickets. Also differences in color… I’ve seen some turn deeply red-pink all around, while others produce more of a blush over a yellow foundation. So it wouldn’t surprise me if Prunus virginiana behaved similarly.
Perhaps your local ecotype or wild populations haven’t adapted for bletting. They may also ripen later in more northen lattidudes say closer to Canada.
Reguardless, I think your chockcherries are as ripe as they can get. I just know from personal experience what a world of difference fully ripe vs partially ripe makes.
Putting 2 & 2 together, is why I also thought maybe most people don’t harvest chokecherries fully ripe & that’s why they get a bad name for themselves. I’m more convinced now there is a lot of genetic variation & expression on those said variations among ecotypes in different parts of the country where they grow.
Very interesting observation, October fruits can be left to blet but not september ones… wait… Plums can be bletted!?
@JinTX hmm… since the traditional way to eat chokecherries was to dry them & crush them with shell & all after cooking, maybe they actually ate them as dried up rasins?
@NotFaeGardener oh wow! You’ve tried Prunus angustifolia!? That’s awesome how did they taste like? What flavors ranged, how good can it taste & what’s the worst tasting fruits of that species you tried? It’s a species I’d love to get seeds of, Well also of American type Plums (Not to be confused with Sand Cherry (Prunus pumila)
Since you describe different flavors & colors, they might be classifed into different varieties within the same species. I know Prunus virginiana has 2 different varities. Prunus virginiana var. demissa : Western Chokecherry Prunus virginiana var. virginiana : Eastern Chokecherry
Probably the same thing is happening with Prunus angustifolia or it’s varieties are classified as separate species when they probably could’ve been varieties.
It was more common for a lot of foods to either be cooked, dried, or put through some other process of preserving for longer term storage and/or transport.
I was hoping Townsends: https://m.youtube.com/@townsends had done something with them, but nothing came up in the search. He usually has a lot of interesting information around the historical uses.
Yes. I actually have a small thicket of it in my suburban back yard (accidentally) although it’s going to have to renew itself after a company trenching for fiber optic cables took out a lot of the oldest/largest plants last year. A cold snap took out the earliest blooms, but I’m still hoping to get some plums this year for seed.
At their best, sand plums are sweet-tart and delicious, similar to cherry plums from the store but a little more tart. Mine are on this side of the spectrum… sweet enough to eat fresh, but with a little tart pucker. I’ve harvested from some stands, though, that no matter how ripe they get, they’re just too much to the tart side of things for fresh eating. They do, however, make a lovely wine, if you can brave the thickets full of thorn-like spurs to harvest enough of them.
Edit: As I understand it, P. angustifolia hybridizes super easily, so some of the thickets I’ve harvested from may have picked up some genes from related species.
Yep, I didn’t get around to harvesting the plums from my next-door neighbor’s plum tree (she told me I was welcome to have the leftovers) until late December. The plums were still hanging on the tree, looked wrinkly and shriveled. But inside, the pulp was in perfect condition, and even sweeter than usual. Definitely bletted! No insect damage in any of them, either.
Yes, I put a load of those plum pits into the Serendipity Seed Swap box.
I’m HOPING to get out to some friends’ properties and pick up more this year from different stands, both for my own thicket restoration and for sharing!
Nice! Indeed, Prunus spp. hybridize easily, especially among their groups.
Techically speaking all Prunus spp. are cross compatible but you have to employ some outside the box methods like Mentor Grafting & Mentor Pollination to bypass hybridization barriers.
WOW! That’s amazing, you’ve gotta take a picture cuz I’ve never really seen a bletted plum. Do they have a flesh color change? Also does dehydrating them also blet them?
I hope you get enough seeds for you & everyone! I’d love to get some. I summer pruning trees makes them go into fructative mode, opposite of Vegetative mode.
They just looked like plums, only with the skin a bit wrinkly. The inside looked exactly the same as usual. The texture was I’d say slightly gummy, as opposed to juicy, but still soft and pleasant to bite. Same flavor as before, just a little sweeter. They’re always nice plums, and I’d say the bletted fruits were equally good as the just-ripe fruits, and very similar.
I’m personally a big fan of fruits that can be left on the tree into the winter. Especially if they get better while on the tree! That gives me way more options to harvest when I want to, which makes fall relaxing. Spreading out the workload over many months helps!
Yikes, the things I never imagined that I would be called upon to remember! Off the top of my head, I’m going to say, no sepals. But this summer I will pay attention and let you know for certain. And I would be happy to send you seeds as well. And for the record, they taste horrible, they are called chokecherries for a valid reason. They are very astringent, and you won’t eat many fresh. But people put a ton of sugar in them and make jelly and syrup. I made a batch of syrup once and it tasted like cough syrup. Many people love it. And to compare to Emily’s tree, what grows around here is a shrub, maybe 6 feet tall, and spreading, somewhat like a plum thicket but not as aggressive. I’ll get pictures when they start to bloom.
You were the one who pointed out that they were definitely Prunus virginiana and not an Aronia sp, in fact. 
You and your obsession with bletting fruits! 
No insect damage in any of them, either.