Drew, where did you get honey queen? I’ve never heard of it. im adding a patch of nova, killarney, joan j and encore to a property im allowed to farm. be nice to get early summer berries. my consorts are near leafing out. they are always the earliest. my 3 varieties of honey berries haven’t even started yet. got primocanes coming up from all my ever bearings rasps. added a BP-1 and September rasp. from indianaberry, to the everbearing rasp patch. still looking for a yellow berry rasp. variety that will do well up here. does fall gold fruit before anne? the info I’ve read is conflicting. anne is probably too late here as it fruit the same time as heritage.
IME Fall Gold fruits before Anne. Summer and fall crop.
From Berries Unlimited. They stopped selling them a few years ago. Konrad first mentioned them on Garden Web, and so I tried them. He is in upper Canada. I think they are a Canadian cultivar eh.
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Looks like the Royalty rasp is shooting out a purple sprout off the bottom of the cane, and there are others, like Nova and Caroline that look to be trying to push out something from the cane as well. Still waiting on the two black rasps and the Prelude and Killarney to make a showing.
On the blackberry front, as mentioned earlier the Ouachita is definitely sprouting, and the Traveler has a small one as well. The Triple Crowns planted almost two months ago are still showing 4 main sprouts near the cane, and a couple small ones a bit farther away. Two of them are still not showing anything yet, but not giving up on them. But, to have 4 of them up is still good to see.
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It sounds like they will do fine this year for you. Before long you will be wondering what to do with all the berries! I like to read your letters. It sounds like such an adventure for you to watch your new plantings grow. Never lose that sense of wonder.
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Thanks, it is fascinating to me, all this fruit stuff. I’m a technician by trade, so it appears to that side of me, that is, the mechanics, chemistry and interaction with the sun and soil. But, some things still make you shake your head and wonder how does that happen?
But, after a couple years of dealing with all these plants, I may not have that same feeling when I’m trying to figure out what to do with all this fruit and manage all these plants and trees.
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Yes, I don’t want to expand anymore. Also the harvests have been huge. I still have peaches, nectarines, strawberries, red currants, and blueberries. Garlic too! Still good! I don’t have a lot of each but enough till raspberry harvest. It’s going to be a great harvest too!
I have peach and plum grafts that are a year old and flowering, amazing. I’m going to remove most of the fruit though this year.
Last year I planted the 6 Rasp varieties and 2 Blackberry varieties. Yours seem to be mimicking the growth habit that mine did. The rasps grew really well. Throughout the first summer and fall I noticed very little spreading. a couple of volunteers popped up here and there. This spring however is a different story. Most all of the space between my varieties now have numerous plants pushing up from roots. I really have no way of determining what variety they are from until they actually bear fruit. Raspberries really are the easiest thing to grow that I’ve ever tried.
The jury is still out on blackberries though. My triple crown died from the start. My PAF grew nicely although not as prolifically as the rasps. It has died back to ground level over winter but appears to be pushing new grown from the roots.
I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Although I really like the rasps, I prefer the flavor and texture of blackberries. The handful of berries I harvested off of PAF were some of the best fruit I ever tasted.
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surprised your PAFs died to the ground. they’re supposedly hardy to z5. maybe because they werent established well yet. once they are you will have to prune them vigorously or they will spread everywhere! i have mine in a 4’ by 10’ raised bed that 15in. high and I’ve had suckers come up 6ft from the bed in the lawn! they somehow pushed thru my heavy clay rocky soil!
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Did another berry inspection today, I actually had to water them yestetday, since it’s been pretty warm and windy lately. Anyways, in the new raspberry run, it looks like the Killarney, Bristol and Caroline plants have sprouted. Only the Prelude and Mac Black plants haven’t.
On the blackberry front, it looks like two more of the Triple Crown tip layers have very small, but obvious purple leaves peeking up thru the dirt. So that means that all but one of the 7 have come up.
While doing a bit of grooming of he new BB run, it looks like the PA Freedom has a green sprig just below the surface. That just leaves the Osage that hasn’t.
In the strawberry patch it seems like there are new tiny green strawbs on the Earliglow row every day, and the Jewel row has finally pushed out some new blooms.
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Osage and Freedom blackberries are up now, which means all the UofA BB’s are up. I’m still waiting on Prelude and Mac Black rasps to make their appearances. Fall Gold is really doing well, I think I counted 4 different suckers already.
The Oregon Champion and Jeanne gooseberry plants have actual fruit on them, the largest on the OC are about 1/4" wide. Is it OK to let these plants produce in this their second year? The OC is a bit over 2’ tall while the Jeanne is maybe 18" tall, and about as wide.
Our Patriot blueberry looks like it has some blooms on it as well, but the plant isn’t more than two feet tall. Is it a good idea to allow such a small plant to produce a few berries this year?
The heavy rain we had this weekend made things a bit muddy around here, but the all the plants seemed to get a boost out of it, and now with the sun out, ought to really get them going.
Yes, they must like their spot, they usually need 3 years.
Some say no, I just let mine go anyway. If you remove fruit, the plant will focus on growth.
Thanks.
Yeah, I figured the gooseberries would do well here. My wife said years ago they grew them close to the same area in larger numbers. Our neighbor has some growing on their property as well.
Regarding the bloobs I probably will pinch those fruit buds off, even though it is tempting to let them produce a few berries. That Nelson plant I was worried about is awake now, with lots of new leaves on it. I guess since it’s the last of the four to produce, it kind of makes sense that it’s the last to come out of hibernation.
You went to MSU, I was wondering if you’ve tried the Spartan blueberry for the ole alma mater…
I will this year! Brady gave me a plant in trade, I still owe him, i got the better deal! Funny but Spartan is not an MSU cultivar! Developed in Maryland.
MSU cultivars I know about are
Bonus
Nelson
Bluejay
Northland
Aurora
Draper
Liberty
I only have Liberty, I like it, it produces ton’s of blueberries. Taste is very good.
The guy who developed Northland for MSU, is much more famous for developing Red Haven peach. Northland has wild blueberry in it and has a more wild taste. It produces very well from reports. A good alternative to lower producing wilds like the Maine wild blueberry.
I should get my first taste of Spartan, Raz, Ka-Bluey, and Pink Popcorn this year.
I’m going to add Northland next year probably.
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Northland does indeed have wild blueberry flavor, but the berries are on the smallerside and make picking a chore 
I’m thinking for cooking, I may get a Maine blueberry too. Since i can’t grow all I want (SHB and many Rabbiteye) I want to at least diversify as much as possible. My plants look great this year too. It’s going to be a good blueberry year. And since this is a raspberry thread :0 I must say my raspberries look outstanding too. I didn’t lose any canes during the winter.
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my primocanes are just coming up… spread compost on everything yesterday. mix the wild bloobs in with your comercial ones in recipes. increases flavor big time!
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It’s cool to see how the productivity between all these bramble varieties differs from zone to zone, but it does seem like some varieties are more finicky than others regardless of zone. I added Canby to my 9b raspberry patch, and they are just as great as the Novas, great taste and just as productive. I did plant a Cumberland black variety and it’s been growing very well, better than the Jewel. I tried planting Annes again since my other one lasted a year before it slowly died, and the second one seems to be having the same fate. I had trouble with some others like Fall Gold, Tayberry, Bababerry and Heritage, but I got those as bare roots and can’t really say anything definitive about them. Although the bababerry started to grow before dying.
As far as the blackberries go, the thornless Boysenberries are doing the best along with the Olallieberries and Marionberries. The Ouachita is growing a nice, thick new cane from the base- but only one new cane so far. The Triple Crown seems to be the least productive, even the new plants I propagated by tip rooting are slow to grow.
Really cool seeing everyone’s progress on their plants.
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Zone does matter. Triple Crown is the most aggressive blackberry i ever saw. It would push out all others given a chance. Marionberry barely grows here. A lot of damage to canes over winter. Fall Gold and Anne grow fine here. Not extremely productive, but reliable producers.
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Some new pics of the rasps in various stages of growth, all were planted last month:
AAC Eden, planted last year, doing very well this year
![20180512_185847[1]](https://d55v7rs15ikf5.cloudfront.net/original/3X/2/f/2f90fc941ef1c16372df51bdabd69a5fdc8eda34.jpg)
Killarney, a summer red
Fall Gold, a yellow everbearer, going crazy, I think I counted 4 sprouts
Joan J, a red everbearer
Mac Black, finally started sprouting this week.
The last holdout, a Prelude, finally peeked up through the dirt today. Now all of the rasps and blackberries have come up.
Speaking of blackberries,
Two of the bigger Triple Crown sprouts, out of 5 total:
PA Freedom, has been up about a week, and growing nicely
PA Traveler, another primocane BB
Osage, the last of the BB’s to come up, has a distinctly more purple color to it
Ouachita, was the first one to sprout, no surprise as this one had massive roots
A view of the UofA row, hope to see it fill in eventually. I gave each plant 5ft of space
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