Editor’s Note: The following letter refers to the Barefootin’ column in the Jan. 5 edition of the Cape Gazette.
Wineberries can be a very fine thing. Before coming to Rehoboth Beach, we lived in southwestern Connecticut for 40 years, and discovered the joys of wineberries.
The birds very kindly seed them below any tree with a decent place from which to poop, and, as you point out, they tip root. The former characteristic may mean that they are in close proximity to poison ivy. Some friends kept a hedge of them, and one year threw a dessert party centered around wineberries, paired with all sorts of dark chocolate delicacies. I soon got some plants from them, and for years after, we had wineberries.
There, they ripened between July 19 and 21 most years, and one could almost pick with one’s eyes closed ... the position of the first ripe berry on each branch was identical, and the second relative to it, too, right through to the 10th or 12th – each seemed to have its assigned spot. So over the week or 10 days of picking, one knew where to reach for the ripe berries.
As an experiment, I once put out a bowl of wineberries and a bowl of very nice raspberries for a party. The wineberries were gone long before the raspberries.
I recall going on a garden tour, where the whimsical owner posted a sign next to a particularly hairy and symmetrical specimen, identifying it as something along the line of aracneae rubrum, and maybe perched a tiny pair of sunglasses on it.
I would think that the tip-rooting might be a very good thing if it will root in shifting sands. Could beat beach grass for planting behind the sort of snow fence we use to protect dunes in Rehoboth ... except when the berries ripen and people reach for them! And while it might keep out large critters, it might provide a fine habitat for smaller ones.
I did have occasion to pull a lot of plants from under birdtrees, and they weren’t as troublesome as some of the wild raspberries; the newly tip-rooted ones came up easily, and the older ones didn’t poke through gloves, which the other raspberries did.
Wyn Achenbaum
Rehoboth Beach
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