Berries of the Don Valley remembered

Excerpted from Remembering the Don, Charles Sauriol (pp 38-9)

In the Don Valley are found all of the bush and ground fruits of the Ontario countryside.  There are red, purple and black raspberries; the blackberry or thimbleberry; the small wild strawberry; the elderberry; red and black currants; the blueberry; the gooseberry and wild grapes.  There are several varieties of wild cherry including pin and choke cherries.  In the fields grow the ground cherry and in the woods the mandrake or maple apple.  These are the wild fruits we are likely to find on a summer or fall ramble.

The season of the wild fruits begins with the ripening of the succulent strawberry.  It grows in abundance, dotting the meadows with tiny patches of red fruit, usually towards the end of June.  About mid-July the first red raspberries ripen, large and juicy in the lowlands, firm and round on the slopes.  The fruit is firm, easy to pick, obviously seedy.  The canes remain in bearing for at least three weeks, a few berries ripening each day.

The blueberry, although generally associated with the late summer of the highlands of Ontario, is ready for picking in the Don Valley about the first of July.  There are a few colonies of this bush fruit growing along the crests of the valley.  They do not bear profusely; each patch yields several quarts of good-tasting fruit. 

The gooseberry, a native plant, grows almost to the artic circle.  It is common and abundant in the Don Valley.

The blackberry or thimbleberry, as it is commonly called, is queen of the late bush fruits.  If you can brave its thorns, the blackberry is well worth the effort.  The fruit is large and juicy, somewhat seedy; excellent for jam.

September has its special fruit, the elderberry.  We are all familiar with its large clumps of fruit to which adhere hundreds of small, round, purple berries; good equally for wine, jelly or jam.  ... Flickers and robins delight in its fruit.

During the first week of October a late variety of wild red raspberries yields profusely in the valley and ends the harvest of the bush fruits for the year.