Supprise Honeyberry

Id say either you dont have enough cold or you arent getting good pollination or they arent getting enough sun. Are there only like 20 flowers and green fruit? If you arent netting the birds will find all the ripe berries long before you do, they are bastards! Also you NEED to have compatible varieties for cross pollination, based upon your above statement, it kind of sounds like you have A shrub, not shrubs… What varieties are you growing, can you post pictures?

I have berry blue, borealis, and honey bee. There were plenty of flowers this year but with rain and cool weather the bees only came out occasionally. One year the fall was so warm the plants started to go dormant and then started new growth. I realize I don’t have ideal growing conditions for Honeyberries most years.

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my indigo treat and gem are only 2ft tall and have probably 50 flowers / green berries on them in 3rd leaf. they were slow to establish but are really putting on good growth this year! my 12in aurora i put in last year had 4 berries on it when i planted it. has about 20 this year and is growing vigorously now. i have blue belle and blue bird in a drier spot on a friends property. even mulched there, they are sparse producers in 4th leaf. with snow damage and less watering im lucky to get 30-50 berries per bush. i mix them with my juneberries and they’re pretty good that way.

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Bad surprise here-something stripped my 3 bearing bushes of every,last berry, even those which were green! And caged!!! Maybe chipmunks…? Last fall was a mast year with oaks so I think squirrel and chipmunk population went up. Drat!

I have 1 berry too! I planted 1 indigo and two auroras last FALL! One aurora died after it already leafed out this year. Other two had few flowers - plants are still about 1 foot tall!. And to my surprise one berry is turning purple now…
To the dead aurora - it wilted, I dug it out and found that the roots still have a “sock” on them - plants were in small pots when arrived. I removed the sock and planted again - it got back up, just to wilt again a week later. This time I planted it in the pot to control moisture, but it never recovered.

Yeah, I watched chipmunks eating my honeyberries this year. They’d take a taste of one, throw most of it to the side, then move on to the next one. It’d be less annoying if they just took a few berries and finished them.

Mine too. I planted Aurora, Borealis and Indigo Gem in '15 and none of them have done too well as they’re seemingly in shade most of the time now that my metal building is up.

Then in ‘16 I planted a couple Tundra & another Aurora in full sun and they’re doing pretty good. I netted this year for the first time so I’ll get more than the birds. I just picked this cereal bowl from the Aurora. It’s maybe a 2’ plant (would have been closer to 3’ but I covered it with a tarp while I sprayed the cherries the other day and 20 min later I learned I successfully fried the top of the plant. Too hot under there for 20 min… live and learn!)

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No shortage of watermelon at your place ehh?

$2.77 at Walmart…

very jelly

Picked few Tundra honeyberry. It is about couple of feet tall, needs a pollinator. IMG_20180613_155100101

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I made that bowl above into a flip.

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taste like blueberry pie?

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Yes more or less. Kind of a cross between that and raspberry. My wife said it tasted like black raspberry without the seeds. She raved about it with every bite. Wanted to know if there were more out there, and if I had it netted, etc. (told me she could just eat the whole pan!)

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recipe please!?

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It’s about as simple as you’ll ever find… it’s actually a peach flip recipe I found a few years ago, but I use it for all sorts of stuff. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 to 2 cups of peaches but as you can see I used however much that bowl above held. I also added maybe a little less than a tsp of almond extract but it isn’t necessary of course. Super simple!

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
Pour melted butter in a 9" round pan
Combine dry ingredients, add milk and stir
Pour batter over butter
Add fruit
Bake at 375F for 45 min. Dough will rise and cover the fruit while baking.
Serve with whipped cream.

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I assume you add the milk to the dry ingredients. It is making me hungry looking at those pix!

Oh oops! Yes, I see I forgot that part?!?!? I’ve included it now. Thanks!

Thanks Jer, going to try that with some of our fruit this year!

I bet you’ll be happy with it Mike, it never disappoints for such a simple thing to throw together.

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