Greetings from California. I have had similar experiences with Garden huckleberries and now they are just a giant PITA in my yard. I was more concerned about toxicity so now I treat it like a weed. Meanwhile I have huckleberry, the real kind, trying to grow in my yard. Blueberries are doing great, and you'd think the huckleberries would be too, but alas I get a beautiful little plant with no berries. However it still has a place in my heart to have these plants since nearby in Oakland california, there is the Huckleberry Reserve where there are wild huckleberries which we are, I believe, not allowed to pick.
Although I should not have been amused and delighted reading all of your texts, they were hilarious. They made me laugh because I thought I was the only one experiencing the tastelessness of these berries that I was assured by people who cook them, were delicious. I made one small batch of jam and it became compost because it was inedible. Maybe I i didn't add enough sugar, or too much pectin, or my berries were overly ripe, but my small jar of garden Huckleberry Jam was disgusting.
Thank you for brightening my day. I wish I could save all of these comments because the people who wrote them were so articulate and I enjoyed very much hearing about your experiences with these stupid Weeds
-gardener in Oakland CA.
