Mrs B’s Garden Huckleberry is an easy to grow nutrient dense food. We will point out, however, that Mrs B’s isn’t actually a huckleberry. Mrs B’s is a variety of Solanum scabrum – one of the edible black nightshades (in the same family as tomatoes and ground cherries). Native to Africa, Solanum scabrum is now widely cultivated around the world.
The edible black nightshades are starting to receive attention as potential superfoods.
Research on Solanum nigrum (another species of edible black nightshade) found that the dark coloured berries have anthocyanin levels similar to blueberries. Other studies have found that Solanum scabrum (using its old name S. melanocerasum) has vitamin C levels that are higher than lemons and limes and just under the vitamin C level of oranges (comparing vitamin C content/100 grams).
Taste-wise Mrs B’s aren’t as sweet as blueberries, but they are sweet. The best way we can think of to describe their flavour is as a faint vanilla ice cream kind of sweetness.
Berries are ripe when they turn from ‘shiny-black’ to ‘matte-black’ (a dull black). We eat the ‘matte-black’ berries raw and freeze them for smoothies and crumbles. They can also be used to make jams and jellies.
And we will point out that Mrs B’s isn’t bitter — apparently some strains of garden huckleberry can be bitter. In fact, Mrs B’s full name is ‘Mrs B’s Non-Bitter Garden Huckleberry’ according to the Seed Saver’s Exchange’s 1999 Garden Seed Inventory.
Plants have small white flowers and are about 2 ft tall. They are productive and you will only need one or 2 plants to get a good harvest of berries.
**Please note that Mrs B’s will easily self-sow via berries left in the garden — so we suggest planting Mrs B’s in a container or in an isolated garden patch away from your main garden. We don’t need to plant Mrs B’s anymore, the seedlings come up in the spring from berries that have overwintered in our Zone 4 garden.
Mrs B’s was introduced to the seed trade by the pioneering seed company Seeds Blum (Iowa) in the 1980s but are now hard to find. Our seedstock came from a Seed Savers Exchange member in Montana.
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How to Plant: Start indoors 6 weeks or so before the date of last frost. Press the very small seeds into the soil and barely cover. Seeds need light to germinate. Place the pots under bright light/under grow lights and keep the soil moist and warm. Mrs B can take 1-3 weeks to germinate. Once seedlings emerge, keep under grow lights. Transplant outside when the danger of frost has passed. **See notes above about planting in a container or isolated patch of garden.
