Now Forage

Autumn-olive: Small, silvery-speckled red berries in clusters. Ripe when deep red and slightly soft; tart-sweet flavour. Very high in lycopene. Good for jam; note this is an invasive species in North America.

Grape: Berries fully coloured and slightly soft. Stem where it joins the bunch turns woody and brown. Seeds easily visible inside. Sweet throughout when fully ripe — taste from different parts of the cluster as they ripen unevenly. Grapes do not continue ripening after harvest.

Japanese barberry: Small red berries on spiny branches. Edible but very tart — best cooked. Ripe when uniformly red.

Staghorn sumac: Deep red, fuzzy, cone-shaped seed clusters. Ripe in August–September. Soak clusters in cold water for 20–30 minutes, strain, and sweeten for pink 'sumac lemonade'. Very high in vitamin C. Do not confuse with white-berried poison sumac (wetlands, white berries = avoid).