Opinions wanted: Favorite raspberry varieties?

That could be a virus, mine is not like that.
I found a yellow this year. A bird deposited seed near my house. I’m going to move it to my bed. Big berries, very sweet. It has fruit right now. Another from a bird had big red berries, but it was like an acid wash, totally awful berries, I killed it.

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I hope it is a great berry for you!

My Anne and Kiwi Gold are neck and neck at this point. It took Kiwi Gold about 4 years to grow into itself. Both are excellent. Caroline is still my favorite red. I really do not care about black raspberries any longer. The taste is too bland. :slightly_frowning_face: Red Carolines have the best raspberry flavor and are an excellent size! My second crop , the large crop is starting to set buds as is my Kiwi Gold! :sunglasses:

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Truth is it might be double gold. I can’t remember. Whatever varriety is as the end of my row. It had a great flavor but crumbled badly. It’s one of the gold rasps. Seems to be more peachy colored than Anne.

Yes had that happen. Not sure why they crumble? Well various reasons. Happens to me a lot with blacks, not crumble, but dried out. If didn’t happen this year for me. I’m thinking too dry, if virus it would keep doing it.

both of them ripen too late for me. :frowning:

I had some Coho raspberries that were good tasting from my berry patch. This is my first year growing raspberries though and I am sure there are better tasting ones.

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How does Himbo Top fare with SWD compared with other varieties?

No better. Although the summer crop, if you choose to leave the bottom 2/3 canes, ripens early with Prelude, before SWD here.

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I have had good luck with Cascade Delight; good flavor and very productive. Also better resistance against rot root.

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At his point I’ve had about 5 or so BP1 and quite like them. They remind me of a juicier, not-as-jumbo version of Lauren, which I decided to replace. Lauren was tasty, mostly sweet, but wasn’t very juicy so these are much better.

Like Lauren, the BP1 are also a little lighter in color than Prelude, which is what I have the most of right now. I’ve also planted Josephine and have high hopes for that. It seems the Josephine run a bit later than the BP1, so that may be a negative for Josephine for the spring/summer crop when my SWD starts setting in. Lauren and Prelude had always been early enough to escape the arrival of SWD for me. I’ll be curious to see what BP1 does for the primocane crop.

For overall flavor, I would say the BP1 are as good as any store bought or farmers maket raspberries I’ve had. I’ve only previously had Prelude and Lauren from my garden and for fresh eating BP1 is much better than either of those as well. Prelude is okay for fresh eating if you let them hang, but they are certainly more tart than sweet, so probably better for processing as Drew says, vs. for fresh eating. Having said that, Prelude doesn’t get huge and is still super productive and early, so great in everything but fresh eating.

The only negative I can see with my small sample of BP1 are that the few I’ve picked so far have been a bit more crumbly than the other rasps I’ve grown. They still eat just fine, but I would have to be super careful if I was hoping for perfect berries to garnish a tart, etc. I’m not sure if that has anything to do with location, water, etc. or is just one of BP1’s traits.

Have you gotten anymore and what are your thoughts?

By the way, I also planted 2 Jewel black rasps this Spring and I might live to regret it. They are huge and throwing out laterals in every direction! That better equal a bucket load of berries next year or I’ll be quick to yank them since I just don’t have a lot of room.

From the garden this morning…

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I have loved my BP-1s as well. Big berries and tasty… even a few days before they are ripe they still taste pretty darn good. This is my first season with Anne’s and they are huge and sweet. I like them as well.

I did a little experiment - kept tasting one Polka followed by 1 BP1 to compare them. My conclusion - Polka is good. BP1 is very good. BP1 is sweeter and less tart than Polka. Yield on Polka is lower than BP1. Polka has a lot more crumbly berries. BP1 only had very few that crumbled. BP1 was firmer and a tad bigger as well. BP1 is better then Polka for sure but I feel like the this berry is lacking in something, cant put my finger on it. Polka starts to fruit 2 weeks earlier than BP1.

I am thinking of pulling out the Polka. Lets wait to see how Josephine does.

Anyone harvesting Niwot? I tasted my first Niwot today. Small, sweet - WAY TOO SEEDY. Seediest raspberry I ever ate! I am hoping that’s a one off. I am pulling it out if the rest of the fruit are this seedy!

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do the bp-1 and anne fruit the same time. polka jaclyn and autumn britten ripen about the same time here. think bp-1 will be too late ripening for me here. had to pull my heritages because of that.

For me Anne & Polka start in July in zone 9B and BP-1 starts in August. After that they overlap. Anne produces all the way into November. BP-1 is on its first year, so I don’t know. Josephine starts later than BP-1. I mow everything down in December so don’t have any info on Floricane crops.

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same here. only do primocane. polka , autumn britten and jaclyn start fruiting late aug. untill frost kills them in late sept. BP -1 definitely not work for me here. glad to see Anne starts the same time as polka. from what ive read they say anne fruits the same time as heritage which just starts tio fruit in sept and gets killed by frost. put in 3 annes last summer. maybe get some fruit from them this fall.

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I gave Niwot 3 seasons before just giving up on it. I got a lot of fruit but it was not great

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So @Girly, have you gotten any Josephines yet to taste and compare with BP-1? I’ve had a few Josephines, including 3 today, from one of the plants I put in this Spring and they are really great, just like a few others have commented. It looks like it will be a bigger plant to manage and maybe not as productive as the BP-1 plants, but it definitely gets the nod for best flavor.

Sorry for the late reply.

I have been getting Josephines but its not as productive as BP-1. Also in terms of flavor my Josephines have been a let down :frowning: - One week Polka was better than BP-1 & Josephine, another week BP-1 was the best. On average all three are around the same. If I had to pick one I would say BP-1 is the best - at least based on what I have tasted in my garden. That said Josephine berries are larger and rounder for sure & BP-1 is more long but tastes better than Josephine.

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BP-1 sounds like a winner.
On Black raspberries

I don’t like them all that much fresh except for the wild ones. But processed as syrup or jam they tend to beat out other fruit. I like to mix them with mulberries, or black currants. With black currants it takes the sharp edge off. I like this as a syrup for ice cream. Top rate. I was thinking of eliminating black raspberries, but the feedback from my jam and syrup made me rethink that. One person 2 weeks ago said my all berry jam was the best jam she ever had. Said I should be marketing it! It was black currants, red raspberries, black raspberries, and gooseberries, mostly Black Velvet gooseberry.
So it’s turning out to compliment other flavors very well. So I’ll harvest for processing.
I don’t like the Niwot fall crop, but the summer crop is decent here. I grow 2 seedlings of Niwot and both have better flavor in both crops. Also Jewel. Niwot died on me, the offspring are better anyway. Birds grew one, I tried to cross Jewell and Niwot, but not sure plant is a true cross? Doesn’t matter, both work for me.

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