Picking serviceberries (juneberry Saskatoon) in 2026

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Welcome friends. You're watching Living Soil Tree Farm. My name is Nick if you did not know. Today we've got a pretty fun video all about service berry, Juneberry, Saskatoon, whatever you want to call them. This is a sort of updated take in 2026. We've made videos on this species before, but we just started picking berries here in May and I want to take you guys along for the ride. I really wish I remembered my microphone.

[00:00:21]>> Oh, that would probably be so banging with all these cars in the background.

[00:00:25]>> Yeah, I have no idea what the sound is going to sound like. I might have to like go to our spot in Basset and where it's quieter and refilm this whole thing. [laughter] We'll see. But I'll just You never know when someone's going to come up and ask you a question. That's one of the things that's fun, but also as an introvert, maybe not fun depending on the mood.

[00:00:43]When you're picking in these urban and suburban places, you get a lot of questions. Usually friendly questions from friendly people like, "What is what is that? Is that edible?" The amount of people that have just walked up to a total stranger, said, "What is that?"

[00:00:55]and then eaten it. It's like I guess I look tr I don't think I look trustworthy, [laughter] but I guess I look trustworthy to somewhere. Maybe some people are just trusting. Why would I lead them astray? I mean, they can see me eating it. But you do get a lot of questions if you're picking these in urban areas.

[00:01:10]If you hadn't guessed already, Juneberry, service berry, shad bush, shad blow, service berry, that's what we're picking here. They are more closely related actually to apples than they are to blueberries. Despite their blueberry appearance, you can kind of see at the end of the fruit here, they do kind of look like the bottom of an apple, right?

[00:01:28]>> Also look like the bottom of a blueberry.

[00:01:30]>> Also looks like the bottom of a blueberry. That's very fair.

[00:01:32]>> Have me full.

[00:01:33]>> Very fair. It's hard to not just eat the whole handful. Every time I come picking junberries, I usually go home with a hurt tummy cuz I eat too many of them while I'm picking. I'm really trying to not do that today cuz it's hot. But we'll see. It's kind of like a right of summer, right? getting sick from eating too many berries, >> right?

[00:01:51]>> I mean, not sick sick, but just feeling like tumbly >> my tumbly rumbly. So, that's what we're doing here. And again, you know, don't want to beat a dead horse or reinvent the wheel or whatever. We've done videos on June Berry in the past. And so, I'm trying to think, we've covered a lot of this before. What's kind of the updated take? What are the questions that we've gotten repeat from people? One of the questions we get a lot has to do with timing and rust. And so I'm really sticky. So I would actually appreciate a brief moment from berries. I think there's some rust on this side.

[00:02:23]>> Yeah. So rust is a is a pathogen that you can see it's really hit this berry really bad right here. And I can overlay some footage. Oh, that's pretty clear.

[00:02:32]Okay, we're good. Anyway, rust it can impact the berries. It can also impact the leaves. Certain varieties, certain years are worse for the disease. uh you know if there's other hosts around that the rust pathogen has to also live on cedar trees. It can live on other apples, pears, members of the rose family. So it can be a problem especially if you're in the hot and humid south. It can really proliferate there. It's not as big of an issue up north, but it is becoming more of an issue as the climate changes. But that's something people encounter a lot is they'll say, "Oh, I have a bunch of really nice service berries, junberries that look healthy, but all I get is rustcovered alien looking fruit with all the little fungal bodies." Or I don't know if it's fungal or bacterial actually. We can look that up and put it right there. But I think part of what's going on there is a timing thing. We actually we had to guess when these were ripe because we live an hour away from this patch. We found out about it from some friends. We we do have some ones locally that I rely on for timing. So locally they were just starting to get ripe. We figured it's time to come up here and they are almost done. It's a very brief window between when they are not ripe and when they all rotten fall off or the birds get them all. And if you miss that window, these little infected fruit will hang on for weeks, months. I've seen them late into the summer still on the shrub. So if you miss the timing window, it will look like the tree only produced rust nasty berries. It may have produced a bunch and you just weren't there when they were around because they don't stick around for very long. A lot of people will comment when I'm picking if I pick one if you stay focused right there. If I pick one that's like this or maybe I pick one that's like this color, they'll say that's not ripe. That's too early. I would disagree. I kind of like them better at that stage, but that when they get this real dark purple, they do get sweeter. They start to almost ferment.

[00:04:20]So, it just depends how much sweetness you like. As soon as they start turning red, that's when actually here I am eating again. That's when I start picking them.

[00:04:30]And I don't what I would love to know what species of junberry is this. I have no idea really. The only way to key them out is when they're flowering, which again, a brief window in the spring I wasn't here for. This one appears to be a single stem trunk.

[00:04:46]It could be that they've been pruning it. Well, you can see evidence that they definitely have been doing at least some pruning on this. It's resp sprouting vigorously as it is dying, as it is declining in its age, which is not really a surprise if you look at the ground, right? This is crap. This is absolute.

[00:05:05]Why would you expect anything to grow? I I just I can't with these herb the That's a whole other topic, whole other video ranting about landscape fabric and rocks and the wrong size. So, actually, this is a pretty nice size bed. It's just that it's all rocks and landscape fabric. There's like so you can only imagine what the soil looks like underneath of that. This is probably why this tree was planted here is they can for a long time tolerate these crappy conditions in urban sites. So they're native, they're pretty, the flowers and they're very tough. So they do get propagated, which is a blessing, right?

[00:05:36]It's how a lot of these native uncommon fruits are kind of sneaking their way back into the environment if they're hardy, if they can tolerate compacted poor urban soils. People ask a lot about the rust. Uh, in rare instances, they can also get fire blight. I haven't really dealt with that too much, although that might be what killed all these branches. This could have gotten fire blight. It could have been any other number of things. As I said, you know, this tree is getting up there in age, and it's in really, really just rough conditions. That one probably died last year, and they cut it down.

[00:06:04]Actually, I'm pretty certain that was there last year when I was here, and it was looking like this one on its way out. So, they'll probably cut this one down soon. Hopefully, they use it for firewood or put the wood to good use. I haven't really gamed this video out. We might make some jam with all these berries. We're picking as much as we can till we just get tired and hot or we run out of light. We'll see which happens first. So, we might include some jam making. We might include some growing of the seed. I'll come back. What I like to do for seed, and we've shown this before, I come back later in the season when all the rotten fruit will fall onto the ground. There's only a little bit right now on the ground. And you just sweep it all up, all that nasty rocks and fermented fruit, and you can just sew all that in a bed and the seeds will sprout. So, we do grow them. We do have them for sale, typically bare root.

[00:06:45]During the dormant season, if you're local, we will have them available in pots probably starting sometime in the middle of June, maybe late June. We'll have these available locally here in Virginia. God, they're so good.

[00:06:59]Oh, here's something that we should talk about as I continue eating.

[00:07:07]A lot of people I got a stem.

[00:07:09]>> Oh, yum. A lot of people sleep on the fact that they are more nutritious when for most nutrients you could look at.

[00:07:17]They're better for you than blueberries.

[00:07:19]Antioxidants, vitamins, all these things. They have very high levels of nutrients. So, they're really good for you. They are kind of a superfood in that regard. We all know blueberries are really good for you. So, for there to be another fruit that grows a lot easier than blueberries and is better for you and we're not doing more of this like we should have you pick service berry juneberry farms all over the place.

[00:07:41]We're trying to start one so maybe you should too.

[00:07:44]>> Stay tuned.

[00:07:45]>> Definitely is a risk of getting a sugar blush.

[00:07:51]That might be something that's worth talking about. Although it's a short season overall when they're ripe, it is also a staggered window. They don't all ripen uniformly.

[00:08:02]One of the major problems you'll come into is that the berries don't actually release off of the stem very well.

[00:08:10]Editing note, I don't know if you guys can hear the rain, but don't mind it if you can. We're finally getting it. It's been dry. This phenomenon does not happen to all Juneberry trees. So, some varieties, some seedlings don't really have that trait. The plantings that we collect from in Basset, just another random urban population of juneberries, they release off the stem a lot easier than this population that we're talking about in Rowan Oak. So, your experience may vary.

[00:08:34]Can make it a little bit challenging to pick them without them getting damaged.

[00:08:39]That's probably another reason why you don't see them in the stores. Not just perishability, it's also firmness. You know, they last plenty long in the fridge, I find, but not if they get squished. And if they get squished in picking or in transit, you know, that's a big loss when you're looking at economics.

[00:08:57]I think there has been some modern breeding approaches up in Canada. I don't really know. I mean, obviously indigenous peoples have been working with and selecting these trees, shrubs, whatever you want to call them, for countless generations. It may be urbanized, but we still got the mountains at least. Look at that.

[00:09:17]Looking good.

[00:09:26]I don't know most of you in real life.

[00:09:28]Some of you I do, but most of you I don't know in real life. And so I can only assume what you assume. And I assume that you assume some of you by looking at me that perhaps I had a plan when it comes to juneberries and service berries. Same thing. I don't know why I said and anyway that I might have had a plan like okay I found out about them and I want to go find them and start eating them. There was no plan. I want to tell you guys a little story about how the happen stance of my life kind of how the service berries found me. That's the way I see it. So I had become aware of service berries. I'm not sure exactly when. Probably sometime around 2022, 2023. Not that long ago. Probably I don't it doesn't really matter who was first. Uh but I think I might have first heard about them from Aka Silver either through his YouTube channel and or his nursery or his he wrote a book trees of power. But probably I heard about it from other sources online in my various learnings and engagements with the world. The thing is, as I'm sure many of you can relate, becoming generating finding the interest for a species of tree and then actually going out and finding that tree and foraging from it, two separate things, right? So, I was excited about service berries. I had not seen any in the wild. I had I had no idea where to begin looking. And even if you do know where to begin looking, as I'm sure many of you have found, that can be a frustrating task. Sometimes you get lucky. You find something immediately. Other times you drive around or walk around for what feels like forever and you don't find what you're looking for. So that's basically how it had gone for me. I had found a handful of service berries in some wood lines in the wild, but they were kind of starving for sun and tall and lanky and never produced any fruit. So kind of a bust cuz what I really cared about was the fruit. And so I'm going along and I figure as I often approach species, I'm like, I'm interested in it. I can't find them locally. I'm just going to buy some plants and try to get some plants established. So, I had bought a few plugs. I forget where I even bought them at this point, but I had potted up a few little service berry plugs in the nursery. So, I was like kind of starting to build that relationship. It's 2024. I had just moved to Virginia. And I'm thinking June berry is going to be ripe in June. So, I'll start paying attention in June. Maybe I'll try to find some in some urban settings or something locally cuz people have touted that that they can be found in urban in urban settings as I have now told you guys in this video multiple times now. Uh, but my friend Corey comes up to me all excited one day that he had found some service berries. He believed at work. He's like, "Man, I found the I think they might be service berries." Like, "Dude, they were super good." And he doesn't he doesn't work that far away. And he's like showing me pictures and I was like, "I think those are service berries, but it's May." Like, I thought Juneberry June, right? It's May. I was like, I guess it's just earlier here in the southeast than up north where perhaps the Juneberry name is more common, which I think is what has happened there.

[00:12:11]Anyway, so now I know now I know in my mind this is the time that they're ripe.

[00:12:18]So I'm paying more attention when I'm driving around. And actually I think within the next day or two I was driving I believe I was probably driving to the dump or the post office either going to take a bag of trash out or maybe deliver a package. But I know some red caught my eye on a little tree as I was driving and I was like no way. Turn around, hazards on, go out and check. service berry or at least what I you know I thought they were service berry having it's my first interaction with the fruit I had to go through my personal process for making sure I'm not going to eat something poisonous you need you do need to be careful if you're going to be consuming fruit from a plant that is foreign to you for the first time you really want to be sure that you're not you know I don't say that to scare anybody but you've got to you've got to take proper precautions there anyway do your own research on that front I'm not like a foraging guide I'm just kind of sharing my story of me foraging junberries anyway way. Yeah. So, there's the June berries right there. It's like peak season. The timing couldn't have been better. There was tons of trees, tons of fruit. I like filled my freezer, filled my belly, kind of fell in love with the plant, got all encouraged and excited about growing them. I got a bunch of seed and it really just it catapulted my relationship with the species forward because in my opinion, the trees found me through Corey and I guess through my eyes, you know, it was it was kind of just a story, like I said, of happen stance. I didn't go out with any sort of plan other than the plan of I want to work with this species and as soon as I get an opportunity I will. That's oftentimes how I approach things in the how I things how I approach trying to enter into relationships with new species of plants whether it be just for foraging or for also the nursery whatever that that tends to be how I do it. Be aware of when they are most noticeable or when they are most productive, which is usually when you want to find them, is when they're producing food. But be aware when they are noticeable, when they are producing the thing that you want, and just keep your eyes open all the time when you're traveling. I've said this before in many other videos.

[00:14:13]That is the way to find these plants.

[00:14:15]Sure, you can go out and try to say, "I know that they like to exist in this habitat, so I'm going to explore habitats that are similar to that near me." Sometimes that can be fruitful, but sometimes that can be a very long drawn out process. So, both viable paths. I thought that was a fun little story to end it on. I do actually have one last thought that I want to leave you guys with, which is it's really cool for me to reflect back in time and say this is only my third season working with this species. My third season collecting, harvesting, eating the fruit, and it has so deeply integrated into my seasonal routine now. It's just such a visceral thing now when that first service berry touches my taste buds in the spring. I guess it's still technically spring, right? I feel like it's summer. Like that first berry entering my mouth, it's like, okay, we are into the growing season. You know, it it's been hot.

[00:15:04]We're still going to get some cool days.

[00:15:05]Like it's not like July weather yet, but like it is in my opin. The leaves are all fully leafed out. The days are long.

[00:15:12]Just feels like we have at this point passed through that transition of spring. And we're now into boy, the sun's getting bright. Growing season.

[00:15:19]This, you know, sometimes you forget the sun moves, right? Been sitting here long enough talking to you guys that my shady spot is no longer as shady. Anyway, I'm going to get back to it. Okay, one last little editing note on frost here, friends. The patch in Basset produced a really heavy crop for two years in a row. And then this year, it actually did not produce very much. And I think that was because of a frost, a late season frost that hit the flowers. And my guess, Rowan Oak has a very similar climate to us, but as we saw, the berries ripened earlier. That could be a genetic difference. It could also be a climatic difference, right? But because it's an urban uh center, it has the urban heat island effect. So, I wonder if that late season frost possibly didn't hit the flowers in Rowan Oak, there could be many other things at play. But just something to note. They are a seasonal sort of harbinger or whatever of the incoming growing season, but you're not always going to get berries. There are sometimes going to be frosts or disease issues like we've touched on. As always, friends, I appreciate you for tuning in. Please let me know what you think. I love hearing your comments, your thoughts, your questions down there below. And uh we will catch you in the next one. And boy oh boy, if you've made it this far along, I probably don't have to say this to you, but this is my shameless reminder that liking, commenting, subscribing, interacting with the video, sharing it, all that stuff really does help grow the channel. that does help support me in this journey of sharing this whole experience. So if you appreciated this video, doing any number of those things means a lot. Take care.