there are some peach varieties that are hardy to z4 but im reluctant to try them unless hardy to z3. had 2 manchurian apricots that didn’t make it here and they were z4 hardy.
1 Like
Yeah when I see your zone, I have to think I have nothing to complain about!
1 Like
its a fight here with the cold and compact clay, rocky soil. only commercial crops that grows decent here is potatoes ,buckwheat and oats. i gave up trying to grow a garden in ground and now grow everything in raised beds. theres more rocks than dirt on this property!
1 Like
A greenhouse would help a lot!
i have a 10’ by 20’ 7ft tall one i got on amazon but can’t really grow anything in pots unless they can be planted in the ground to protect the roots over the winter. this last winter killed everything i had in pots in the garage except my juliet. even that didnt show life until 2 weks ago.
1 Like
I like them a lot, what an excellent flavor they have. Waiting on mine, I got a couple weeks. I could just grow these and be happy.
I don’t know? It should not have poor pollination unless it happens not to be self fertile. Some Rubus plants are not! Including raspberries, but none are ever introduced, it’s considered a release stopper.
It could be a symptom of a virus infection.
1 Like
Yes, I agree. It’s in the top three for blackberry flavor (Marion, Siskiyou, and Newberry)…Boysenberry is almost tied for third though. I have to go back out to Portland OR again soon, so I might look around this time for some new plants.
2 Likes
Had my first boysenberry today would have one a couple of days ago but birds go to it first. Still have a lot of green ones though. I do see some red on a few more. Wish my newberry was bearing. Oh almost forgot had three wild treasure today too.
2 Likes
It starts like that on first fruits and then about half way through harvest the berries are normal. Last year too so I really don’t know what is going on. I don’t know what berry it is. I got it when I ordered PAF but it is not anything like PAF and is not a primocane. The berries are fairly small especially compared to PAF but they are good. Thanks for the input.
Katy
What do you think about the flavor of each blackberry?
K8tpayaso
Here is a link of blackberry disorders:
" UAEX.edu. What Is Going On With My Blackberry Fruit? "
May help ?
1 Like
@jtburton I need to plant a Marion berry instead of going off memory. Was going to pull kotata but I will give it couple of years the berries are definitely bigger this year. I once thought I had borer’s but now am convinced I have rose stem girdler instead and they leave kotata alone. With that said for what I have sampled I would put boysenberries first wild treasure second the 3 Columbia star I had last year left me just ho hum along with kotata. With last years fiasco with siskyou not being true. I ordered from bay Laural and grow organic. All three from bay Laural croaked the other three are doing ok. So next year I should get a few newberry and siskiyou and if I like them I will replace either the row of kotata and or Columbia star.
1 Like
@fullplate I wouldn’t pull Kotata yet… it didn’t work for me but I’m not in the optimal climate for it (Northern KY). I have noticed a few varieties that would normally have more flavor but in my climate, never really had the flavor pop. Kotata is super thorny, so there is that issue to manage. It is supposed to have very good flavor.
Marion is really the berry to have, especially in the Portland OR area…you should be able to pick those up pretty much anywhere that sells blackberry plants. I saw Marion and Tayberry at Fred Meyer when I was out there last month. One Green World is in the Portland area and has a lot of blackberry varieties.
Siskiyou would grow super large for me during the growing season (20+ft canes) but then most of the canes would die back over the winter Siskiyou kind of has a sweet tart flavor…if you have room, try it out. I purchased Siskiyou from Grow Organic too but the ordering window is short.
The red necked cane borer is particularly challenging. They attack the lower part of the cane and anything above the bulge they create usually dies. The pesticide that you can use is dangerous to bees, so you can not apply it during the bloom period but the cane borers start attacking the plants during the bloom period.
Seeing rot in the strawberries now after the bed flooded last week
hope your strawbz recover, ltilton.
i suspect the very first blackberry plant i purchased wasn’t a PAF. paid for a PAF last summer from hirt’s, which initially sent me a thorny variety clearly marked with a “prime ark 45” label. sent it back, and in exchange, i got another prime ark 45. after i complained some more, they finally sent me a thornless variety, which they claimed was prime ark freedom.
unlike my PAFs from hello organics, though, that blackberry from hirt’s hasn’t provided a floricane crop this spring. also, the leaves look slightly more purple (especially when they’re newly emerging) than PAF leaves.
well, it’s finally had its growth spurt this spring, so i’ll be interested in its eventual flowering, productivity, and flavor. in the meantime, it remains a mystery cultivar.
Making my first pick of boysenberry this Sunday they are so close. Kotata is definitely larger this year on the end of the row hopefully the rest will size up like these but with several 90 days coming up I’m doubtful.
5 Likes
Those look nice @fullplate, big berries too.
A brief report on our berry plants:
Our Patriot blueberry has 4 little berries on it now, after I had picked one off to sample. It was still a bit sour, so I’ll leave the other be for a few more days.
Our Razorback blackberries continue to do very well, PAF is about 30", PAT and Osage are about 20" and Ouachita is about 24". My five Triple Crown plants are lagging behind a bit, but have done pretty well. But, I was greatly annoyed to see that 3 of them had some leaves stripped off. Must be deer as a few nearby potatoes were munched on too. My reaction was, “you f-ers have 1000 acres of lush green grass, plants, trees and other stuff to graze on, and you have to destroy my plants!”
Ok, back to be report. The strawberries are done, my wife picked a few earlier this week, and now there’s more weeds.
The gooseberries are still green, not ready yet.
The raspberry run has been almost taken over by weeds also, but I have kept them off the plants. My Royalty and Double Gold appear to be toast. Killarney is still the biggest grower so far, while the Bristol, Mac Black, Prelude, and Nova had made modest gains. My two red everbearers, Caroline and Joan J are struggling, but still hanging in there.
Our wild blackcaps are just now starting to ripen up, we picked a few today. Not bad, but a bit tart. The wild blackberries still haven’t formed up much.
1 Like
Same here with the rain and the rot. 4" of rain over 3 days and now every single strawberry is rotting.