The salmonberries move in when the trees move out. In Southeast Alaska, and no doubt other parts of the Pacific Northwest, salmonberry bushes are a common sight, especially in areas that have been clear cut by logging. (Here in Southeast Alaska, the trees will grow back naturally, and the berries will in turn subside, but that’s a different conversation.) I lack the sommelier-style vocabulary to describe the salmonberries’ flavor, but they make delicious jelly and are great fresh in your Greek yogurt. They look a little bit like large raspberries, and they come in two colors: yellow and red. The reds are less common, but you want at least a few in each batch of jelly; otherwise, your jelly will come out approximately the color of brown mustard.

The bushes have thorns, but not the savage-killer style that I recall from picking blackberries as a child in central Virginia. With blackberries, you had to suit up, even in hundred-plus-degree weather, and go with a friend in case you got trapped in the thicket. Brer Rabbit no doubt loved blackberries, but he surely would have scoffed at salmonberries because it would be too easy for folks to follow him.

So, salmonberries have mild thorns, and they are delicious. They are also the vegetable equivalent of a dog-in-the-manger. They want my yard. They put up runners all over and left unchallenged will take over completely within a couple of years. So, I’m a bit ruthless in dealing with them. I have explained to them over and over that I have set aside several spots in the yard for them, and they don’t listen, so I regularly go after them with loppers and the weed whacker. Digging out the roots is an exercise in absolute futility because they never end, and the slightest fragment left behind will sprout again almost overnight.

You cannot show weakness when dealing with these creatures. My mother-in-law said that putting newspaper down over the spot will slow them down; so, I’m trying that. Also, I am putting the plastic topsoil bags over the bigger stumps in hopes to discourage them a bit. We are currently trying to cultivate a patch of raspberries and a patch of strawberries (wimpy little city kids that they are), and it’s a constant vigil to keep the salmonberries on their own turf. I dearly love you, salmonberry, but if you put so much as a toe over this line, I’ll chop it off.