July 14, 2026
Summertime and the Berry Moon. I don’t call it the Strawberry Moon because, while strawberries are a big deal here in Denmark, there are so many other berries that coming out now too. Berries that are also popular here are gooseberries and the whole variety of currants, which also grow wild. We also have blueberries in the garden as well. So this is definitely berry season for us and I’ll be making a fair amount of jam during this moon.
The Elder Moon was a wild ride. We had storm-strength winds, which isn’t so common in the summer, and they knocked over our apple tree. Luckily it didn’t break the tree and we could get it back upright. It’s now staked again and seems to have resettled itself. We did cut off most of the apples so it could spend its energy on the roots. That means no applesauce or apple butter this year (from our own tree at least).
We also had a strong invasion of larva on the blackthorns and wild plums along the lake that meant many trees lost all of their leaves. Most of them have dropped any fruit they had started, and luckily most of the trees have recovered once the larva transformed and flew away. There are tons of new leaves on the trees now and I hope they can survive the winter. The larva normally show up in small amounts and don’t do such terrible damage. Last winter was very hard though and many of the smaller birds who eat the larva died in the extreme cold. They completely ran amuck this year, completely stripping trees of every leaf. Here’s hoping the birds recover as well and that we have a more normal winter coming.
I wish for abundance and sweetness in the Berry Moon for you.
Hawthorn Seed 