Old Berries Haven’t Spoiled Over Time

The Berry Patch: (276) 944-3812. Berries cost about $4 a pound; grapes are less.

National Plant Germplasm System: http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs

MEADOWVIEW, Va. – Sam Litton remembers a time when everybody had a gooseberry bush.

“Back in the ’40s, I’d say, just about everybody had one. Just about everybody had a grapevine, and they also had some good plum trees,” Litton said.

“They liked to bake a gooseberry pie. Whenever they had a family reunion or something or other, they always had two or three gooseberry pies.”

Now, Litton says, even some of the old-timers have forgotten. He grows gooseberries and dewberries because he doesn’t want them to disappear.

A gooseberry tastes a little bit like a blueberry, but more tart. Dewberries look like blackberries but taste much sweeter. He has dewberries and blackberries growing together in one big tangle, and the whole field is enclosed under a wire cage to keep birds away.

Litton said in the era of mass-production agriculture and grocery stores, which foods are grown and sold now are often dictated by what can be machine-picked. Some of his berries can’t be harvested by mechanical means.

“They taste good, but they sell slow and sorry because people don’t know what they are. But it’s one of the oldest berries in this part of the country,” Litton said of gooseberries. “One of these days, there aren’t going to be some of these older berries.”

Ron Couch, editor of the Fruit Gardener, a bi-monthly publication of the California Rare Fruit Growers, says Litton is not the only one concerned about the loss of traditional berries.

“His concern is one that’s shared by a lot of other people, not just for wild fruit but cultivated fruits as well,” Couch said. “People in general aren’t as interested in agricultural pursuits as they used to be.”

Joseph Postman, plant pathologist and curator at a federal government facility that preserves such crops in Corvallis, Ore., says the plants themselves are not going to die out – and cuttings of many plant varieties are available.

He said the success of small farmers often depends on the availability of unusual food varieties.

Of course, the genetic repository of the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Plant Germplasm System does not retain the cultural traditions surrounding the plants.

For some people, it’s just as important as the berries themselves.

Lisa Walden, a customer who bought berries from Litton’s farm on Monday, recalled local dewberry traditions as she was growing up.

“We lived over in Wise County, and ... we’d go hiking in the fields and over by the woods and stuff and get them,” she said. “[Now] everybody’s life is so demanding, it’s no big deal if you lose berries here and berries there, but it’s just one more thing that gets gone.”

Walden, 35, said she’s seen a huge cultural shift in the region since her childhood – but she hopes to pass on the berry-picking tradition to her 6-year-old son and, someday, to her grandchildren.

“I think it establishes family values, and I think you have this family time together and this bonding instead of sitting in front of the TV,” Walden said. “Of course we run into snakes and bugs and ticks ... but it’s good quality time for us.”

Litton, who started growing berries five years ago as a hobby and now uses berry sales to supplement his income, also grows raspberries, blueberries, grapes, daylilies and four varieties of currants.

“If I wasn’t too old, I would buy me a couple of Virginia Beauty apple trees just to know that there was a couple,” Litton said, “because there’s something that’s almost gone, too.”

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