Love / Hate - Autumn Olive

chaded

5 year old buck +
As a farmer I can’t stand these plants but man are the berries good...

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Do you cook them or eat them raw?
 
Do you cook them or eat them raw?


We eat them raw and cooked. My wife made a crisp today with them and blueberries. When picked at the right time they are pretty sweet but have a tart to them as well.
 
Yeah... it is hard to hate something that tastes good and feeds the critters too. There were no apples here either until the Dutch and English settlers arrived, so there are "good" invasives and "bad" invasives in my mind. At my place, Autumn Olive and European Buckthorn seem to compete for the same space, so it's the Buckthorn that gets the saw or the spray, and the Autumn olive gets spared. The bears are not so kind, and they rip up Autumn olives pretty good getting their fill of the berries.

Good point chaded.
 
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Interesting, I don’t see hardly any AO around here.
Most common invasive here is honeysuckle, the birds love it and for whatever reason morels grow under them. I discourage it but haven’t declared war on it yet.
This is one of the first threads I’ve seen about eating AO.
 
I am at full out war with it with the understanding that I will not win. The previous owners of my farm did not control it and I got the farm before everything was taken over. It will be removed from my pastures if it’s the last thing I do. On the other hand, I have a couple of “thickets” on the part that I hunt that will probably stay but will be kept in check.

Now, if I ran goats or sheep I would look at it as a wonderful forage and would coppice it and encourage it. But, my cattle don’t eat much if any at all of it. Its interesting how Different we look at things depending on our perspective.
 
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