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Permaculture gardeners look for plants that are multifunctional. These berry bushes can fix nitrogen in the soil while providing edible berries.

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Finding food-producing plants that are useful in other ways is a great joy of mine. Multifunctional plants can help improve the efficiency and resiliency of food-producing landscapes while saving time.

When I learned that there were some berry bushes I could add to my garden and food forest that would give nitrogen back to the soil, I wanted to give them a try!

Why is Nitrogen Important for Plants?

Nitrogen is a primary nutrient that is essential for building strong plants with vigorous, healthy growth. Plants need a lot of it. The trouble is, nitrogen isn’t easily or widely available to plants.

That’s because it largely exists in the atmosphere, and most plants can’t access it there.

The good news is that you can create your own nitrogen fertilizer by growing nitrogen-fixing plants, such as the berry bushes in this article.

Nitrogen-fixing plants take nitrogen from the air and convert it into a form that is useable by plant roots in the soil. Certain soil bacteria form nodules on the plants’ roots that “fix” the nitrogen into the soil.

The plant uses some of it, then makes the excess nitrogen available to nearby plants.

Science!

How to Use Nitrogen-Fixing Berry Bushes

Mulching with cuttings of these plants is one way to transfer the nitrogen to your garden beds. (See: Mulching in the Permaculture Garden.) You can also compost the cuttings first to create a rich soil amendment for vegetable gardens.

Permaculture practitioners often plant nitrogen-fixing plants, like these berry bushes, in food forests to feed nearby fruit or nut trees. They feed the surrounding perennials through the soil. On top of that, the plants can be chopped back regularly.

Try dropping the cuttings around fruit and nut trees as mulch to feed the soil from above.

Tip: Chopping and dropping at the beginning of a rainy season helps the nitrogen-rich cuttings break down faster.

Related: How to Build a Permaculture Fruit Tree Guild

Berry Bushes for Fertilizer

There are quite a number of nitrogen-fixing herbs and trees to add to your landscape or the outskirts of your garden, but sometimes a hedgerow of berry bushes is just the thing you need for privacy and food!

The following berries taste nothing like common berries from the grocery store. In fact, modern grocery stores are a detriment to having a varied and diverse diet by only making a few fruits available to us.

The modern grocery store phenomenon has reduced our appreciation and wisdom for nutritious wild foods. Where once we had knowledge about local wild plants that could feed us, now we rely on a grocery store to determine what we should eat.

If you’re wondering how to make uncommon berries more palatable, see my ideas in How to Grow a Jelly Garden (Jelly being just one idea I mention!).

Would you like to learn more about choosing plants that improve the biodiversity of your garden, reduce maintenance, and increase yield?

You’ll find loads of permaculture information just like this in my award-winning book, The Suburban Micro-Farm.

Four Nitrogen-Fixing Berry Bushes To Try

1: Buffalo Berry Shepherdia canadensis

Other Common Names: Canada buffaloberry, russet buffaloberry, soapberry

USDA Growing Zone: 2-7

Fruit Palatability: Fair

This berry bush has a long history of use by native people, and is an important food source for bears due to its high protein content. Birds and deer are only mildly in favor of this fruit. The flowers are an important source of nectar for pollinators.

The fruit is bitter and traditionally mixed with other fruits and/or sweetener. Native people made a sauce similar to cranberry sauce.

It is eaten raw sparingly because it contains saponins, which can upset the stomach in large amounts. Cooking the berries mellows the bitterness and removes saponin.

What it lacks in palatability this shrub makes up for in nitrogen-rich biomass that enriches soil. This multi-stemmed shrub grows to 6-12′ tall/wide and prefers dappled sun in open woods or in sunny thickets at the forest edge.

Read more about buffalo berry here.

Image via jpc.raleigh on Flickr

2: Goumi Elaeagnus multiflora

Other Common names:Cherry silverberry

USDA Growing Zone: 5-8

Fruit Palatability: Good

Goumi is a native to Asia and has long been used as a superfood for its high levels of lycopene (more than tomatoes) and vitamins A, C and E. Birds like the berries but the shrubs are resistant to deer. The spring flowers provide nectar for pollinators.

The taste of goumi is astringent but sweet. Though it has a flavor all its own, it has been likened to the tastes of sour cherries, cornelian cherries, and even rhubarb. Waiting until the berries are fully ripe provides a more enjoyable eating experience.

They can be eaten fresh, but like many tart berries, cooking mellows the flavor, and they make good sauces, jellies, syrup, and pies. The seeds can be eaten or spit out. Cooking softens them. Or make them into wine!

Goumi is a fast-growing, clumping berry bush that grows to 6-8′ tall/wide. The shrubs are self-fertile, so only one variety is required. This species naturally grows in dappled shade in thickets and open woods. It favors well-drained soil, but it happily grows in poor soil.

Read more about goumi here.

Harvesting Goumi Berries

Image via Tatters on Flickr

3: Sea Buckthorn Hippophae rhamnoides

Other Common names:Seaberry, sandthorn, sallowthorn

USDA Growing Zone: 3-7

Fruit Palatability: Good

Sea buckthorn is native to Europe and Asia, naturally growing near the coast in sandy soil or on rocky mountainsides. It is a superfood and traditionally has many medicinal uses as a source for antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fatty acids.

It provides food and shelter for birds and other wildlife. The berries hang on into the winter and provide winter forage.

The super tart berries are often juiced and mixed with other fruits for a more enjoyable balance of flavor. The seeds are like apple seeds, but the berries can be run through a food mill to get rid of them. Freeze the berries and then cook them on the stove for about 10 minutes to mellow the tartness.

Sea buckthorn is a thicket-forming berry bush. It spreads through suckers to quickly hold disturbed soil in place and begin healing it through fertilization. The healthier your soil is, the more slow-growing and tame sea buckthorn will be. It likes well-drained soil and is drought tolerant.

Both male and female plants are needed for berry production.

The shrub grows 10-20′ tall/wide, and makes a nice privacy screen or security barrier in part shade. It dislikes trimming, and will reduce berry production in a year after pruning.

The shrubs have needle-like thorns that make harvesting a challenge. Be sure to wear rose pruning gloves. Thornless varieties exist, but are not yet widely available in the U.S.

Read more about sea buckthorn here.

Image via Lotus Johnson on Flickr

4: Silverberry Elaeagnus commutata

Other Common names:American silverberry, wolf-willow

USDA Growing Zone: 2-6

Fruit Palatability: Fair

Silverberry is native to western North America and has a long history of use by native people. The bark makes strong baskets and cordage. The shrubs provide good shelter for birds but is not a favorite food source. The flowers are a good source of nectar for pollinators.

The berries are mealy and dry, and can be eaten raw. Native Alaskans fried them in moose fat as a high protein treat. They can also be made into wine.

Silverberry is a multi-stemmed berry bush that grows 6-12′ tall/wide to form a nice hedge. It prefers sunny edges of open, disturbed areas where its rhizomes can spread to slow soil erosion. Careful, these shrubs have thorns!

Read more about silverberry here.

Image via Josh*m on Flickr

Notes on these Berry Bushes

1: Watch out for aggressive spreading from the root zone with sea buckthorn and silverberry.

One way to contain these shrubs is to mow wide strip on both sides of the row. Keep it mowed to prevent rhizomes and suckers from spreading. In small spaces where preventing their spread is crucial, a rhizome barrier around the border of the planting area would be a wise choice.

Remember that once the soil is healed, or if you already have great soil, these plants will be slow growing and easy to manage.

2: Elaeagnus species can be dispersive.

Elaeagnus umbellata (autumn olive) is widely detested in many regions. Native to Asia, it is considered an invasive species in much of North America because of its dispersive habit.

Birds feast on the berries that fall off the trees and largely go to waste. The birds then drop the seeds, which make more trees!

My friend Janet at One Acre Farm has this to say about autumn olive, “…environmentally conscious people realize that using the berries for sauces, fruit leather, and jam requires boiling the berries, killing the seeds…killing the seeds of an invasive shrub reduces its spread…”.

Read more of her article on foraging autumn olives here.

I don’t suggest planting autumn olive, but we can take advantage of its wondrous berries (see them as a gift for the land and wildlife!) and help slow its spread.

Likewise, goumi is another non-native Elaeagnus species in North America. There are reports that it has already naturalized in 12 states. If you intend to plant goumi, do so with the intention of harvesting as many of the berries as you can.

Many people have discovered that goumi is not dispersive like autumn olive.

Remember, nitrogen fixers—unlike many other invasives—are short-lived. Their job is to jump-start healing in disturbed and damaged soils. Once soil is healthy enough to support mature trees, nitrogen fixers die out all on their own without human intervention.

If they’ve spread, it’s because the ecosystem needs their help. Read more about this topic in my article When Weeds are Good. You’ll also find an excellent perspective in the book Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration.

Resources

The book Edible Forest Gardens, Vol 2: Ecological Design and Practice for Temperate Climate Permaculture was instrumental in my understanding of nitrogen fixation and the plants that perform this function to reduce our reliance on store-bought fertilizers.

If you’re looking to have fertilizer and eat your berries, too, these berry bushes will do the trick!

READ NEXT:

Are you growing any of these four berry bushes? Do you grow your own nitrogen fertilizer?

>>> Get my free 19-page Guide to Organic Soil Amendments for more ideas: