Ken Love had a memorable line in one of the fruit documentaries he was featured in: if you live in Hawai’i, all you need is a breadfruit tree, a peanut butter fruit tree, and some blackberry jam fruit and you’re all set. This is that third piece.
The Basics
Blackberry jam fruit, Randia formosa, is a small shrub, usually topping out around 7 feet, related to gardenia.
Origin and Habitat
Native to Panama and Ecuador, where it’s grown mostly as an ornamental rather than sold commercially as fruit.
What It Looks Like
Small and shrubby with highly fragrant white flowers, compact enough that it can even be kept in a pot and grown almost like a bonsai.
Uses and Flavor
The name promises blackberry jam, and honestly, now that ours is producing, I have to correct the record a little. It doesn’t taste like blackberry at all. The pulp is grayish black with tiny seeds throughout, goopy in texture, and somewhat sweet, more of a curiosity than a dead ringer for the jam its name suggests. It’s a small shrub, so growing just the one as a novelty is probably the right call rather than planting a whole row expecting an actual jam substitute.
Growing It Here
Got this one from Ken Love and planted it in what’s become our breakfast orchard, right alongside the sausage tree, eggfruit, and peanut butter fruit tree, all clustered together the way Ken suggested. Our single plant is producing now, which finally let us settle the blackberry-flavor question for ourselves.
Pests and Diseases to Watch For
Nothing to report yet.
Kenta’s Take
Grouping these three together like Ken said turned an offhand quote into an actual working corner of the food forest. It’s producing now, and it doesn’t taste anything like its namesake, but as a novelty shrub with a good story attached, it’s earned its spot.