Mountain ash bears bright red fruits from the end of August into winter: the rowan berries or mountain ash berries. The trees are an important source of food for birds, but humans can also eat the berries cooked.

Rowan berries ripen in umbels

From the end of August, mountain ash can no longer be overlooked. Many umbels of bright red rowan berries then hang from them.

Unlike other berries, rowanberries stay on the tree over the winter. Especially in the cold season, they help to feed the birds.

Raw rowanberries are slightly poisonous to humans

Rowanberries contain traces of parasorbic acid, which can cause mild symptoms of poisoning in humans.

Individual raw berries are tolerated by adults without any problems, only children and animals, with the exception of birds, of course, should not eat raw rowanberries at all.

If larger amounts of rowanberries are eaten raw, the body reacts with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Harvest rowanberries for the kitchen

Rowanberries can be harvested from the tree from August. They have a very tart taste, some varieties are also very bitter. These are not suitable for use in the kitchen. Therefore, take a berry and check with your tongue whether it belongs to the particularly bitter varieties.

One way to mitigate the tart taste is to not harvest the berries before the first frost or to place the picked rowanberries in the freezer for a short time.

The whole cone is always picked. Before preparation, the berries are carefully rinsed and dried. You can easily remove the stems with a fork.

From rowan berries you can prepare:

  • jam
  • jelly
  • juice
  • rowanberry brandy
  • tea

Rowanberries can also be dried. The slightly toxic ingredients evaporate during the drying process.

Dried berries taste quite good as an additive in tea, especially in combination with pieces of apple and pear.

If you keep ornamental birds in the house, you should definitely dry some rowan berries from the garden and give them to your pets as additional food.

tips and tricks

Rowan berries not only contain a lot of vitamin C, but also many bitter substances. In naturopathy, the rowanberry is used to regulate problems with the digestive tract because of this active ingredient.

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Category:

Vegetable garden