may I please jump the bandwaggon? I too am looking for bushes, small trees and vines, anything with berries on, preferably edible, if they only feed my greedy birds, fine too since I am fairly new to this I do not have many varieties to trade, the ususal goji, 4 different kiwi but no idea which is which *blush*, euro hazlenut, nameless highbush blueberries that produce like crazy, pinapple guava, euro plum, maypop, Ponticirus Trifoliata, ... 47+ varieties of Tomato seed ... the usual edit: yacon, forgot, I have quite some yacon plants

I really like this thread, as I am especially interested in blackberry flavor. Ouchita - planted as a large specimen in 2014. Vigorous, upright grower, throwing canes 10' in the air. It is also suckering like crazy, up to 10' feet away, which I view as a plus. Earliest fruit for me this year, mid June and is finishing now, with no more unripe berries left on the bush. I may be harvesting early, but I find this one quite sour. Chester - planted in 2014, only the roots survived an early frost. It recovered extremely well and is another vigorous grower. It has been tip-rooting and I have about four new plants out of that. The fruit is ripening in the last week of June and I expect to continue through the first few weeks of July, based on the unripe berries on the plant. These harvest sweet than Ouchita. Neither have much flavor beyond sweet / sour. I planted Black Satin and Apache this year on a hill in partial shade, we'll see how they do. Apache's first cane bore a lot of fruit this year, nothing outstanding in the flavor department.

I have and tasted the following fruits from the list: Aronia: Productive, bit too tart to eat fresh. wonderful to add it into juice. Plant is easy to grow. Chinese Haw: Sweet ,but not too sweet. little tart and sour. The source tasted like cranberry source we use in the Christman dinner. Very popular in China, although the fruit size is a lot bigger. Street vendors string a dozens of them on a long wooden or bamboo stick and coat them with sugar to sale to the kids as snack. Goumi: sweet-tart. My has small fruit, about pea size. Can be eaten fresh. The flower is sweet, pleasant. The plants is easy to grow. Japanese Raisin Tree: Tree itself can grow very tallll. The fruit is very sweet, but not pure sweet like sugar. Its sweetness has some other taste in it. I can't descrip the undertone taste . When we talk about the sweetness of the plants, for example, Stevia's leaves is very sweet but many people do not like the undertone taste. I vote mulberry the #1 favorite minor berry. The tree is easy to grow, the fruit is abundant, and fruit is sweet and juicy. It tastes better than raspberry, backberry or, other commercially grow berries. For people who are lucky in the south, Loquat is a good choice too. The tree is about 10-15' tall, the fruit is a bit smaller in a size of pingpong ball. When it is ripe, it is sweet and juicy. I have current grow in my yard. balck, red, and white. They can be eaten fresh but not particular good taste. It is better to juice them and mix them with other sweeter fruit juice. Another minor berry I like to grow is gooseberry. Pick Poorman. The fruit is balanced sweet and tart, very flavorful. It definately can be eaten fresh.

I have grown a couple of the plants you asked about. I planted currants in Johnstown years ago and had very good success. The soil was a moist, clayey, probably acidic soil. Two bushes each had loads of berries every summer. I found the berries pretty sour, but the birds loved them. I got my plants from Burpee, I think, and they were a standard red garden currant. Very easy to grow. Wild elderberry is very common in PA, and should be no problem to grow. They pop up by themselves all the time in my yard in State College. Spicebush is common in parts of PA in the wild. With reasonably moist soil they should do fine. Only female shrubs get berries, but you need at least at a couple of males. Where they occur in the wild it is often possible to find tons of seedlings that you could transplant. Unfortunately you can't tell if a seedling is male or female until it grows large enough to bear flowers. I have not heard of people eating them, but birds love the berries. Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) is VERY invasive and is one of the most invasive plants in open woods and fields of PA. I don't think anyone should ever plant it. However, if you want berries it shouldn't be hard to find lots of wild ones in the fall. Ginkgo is a fairly common street tree. I think you'd have no trouble growing one anywhere in the state.