2020 berry and harvest report

It’s weird with invasive species, some absolutely hate them with or without good cause, others love them which is usually how they got introduced in the first place. I find that really comes out when it comes to fishermen and certain species in my state, for better or worse lol.

A view from the inside of my surefire pie cherry

Daily harvest when you cover once you notice the birds start noticing your cherries

My aunt who covers early, we have the same number of cherries minus i have a sweet cherry and she has a romeo. We rock her in peas however. This is her daily harvest.

This is her tree we are both totally organic and no spray for our cherries

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not just fishermen. I.F.W was the 1st to bring them in the state. the local bucket biologists spread them from there.

I see where the birds were starting to get into them

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Yeah in one day with a bunch barely turning yellow I probably lost more than half. Also if they finished the damn cherries I would not mind sharing.

A sampling of what we’ve been sampling most evenings for the past few weeks…

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My morning harvest off my 1yr fall gold raspberry raspberry I got a month ago. Only one was fully ripened, I have to get them in the mornings or birds have been getting to them.

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Raspberries and gooseberries are done for now, but we ought to get a few rasps in the fall off the numerous primocanes.

Blackberries are really coming on. We picked these Monday evening off our Triple Crown row, the canes are loaded. Besides the ones we sampled, I’d say there’s 2qt here, and my wife picked about a quart this morning. Berries are large, a lot over quarter sized. Our first substantial crop off these plants.

Flavor is very good, better than the UArk varieties we have. I’d say there’s about 2-3qt left on the vines, not ripened yet. Highly recommend Triple Crown, great flavor, prolific, and seem to be hardy in our location (6b).

The UArk floricanes aren’t as prolific, as we had a bit of winter kill. Traveler and Freedom has had a decent crop, Osage very small, but not done yet, and Ouachita hardly anything. Of these Osage tastes best. Freedom looks like it’s setting some fruit buds on the primocanes already.

I’d rate the UArk floricanes at about zone 6.5-7 as we seem to lose quite a bit to winter kill, TC is about zone 5.5, most of the canes survived last winter (coldest temps were about 10-15F).

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I have been experimenting with tipping fall-bearing raspberries to improve yield. The general advice is not to tip them as that will delay blooming and may not produce before winter sets in. My hypothesis is that this advice originated in the east with shorter growing conditions. Last year, my newly planted Caroline was still producing a few fruits in Dec. This year, after clearing out the floracanes, I tipped half of the primocanes of Caroline and Double Gold. So far, both are producing flowers and the tipped canes are not too behind the untipped ones.

Regular primocane

Tipped cane with branching

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Pretty cool Udhay!
I learned this trick by accident when the deer browsed the tops off a number of my primocanes. I thought I had lost my fall crop, then, to my surprise they regrew and produced 2 to 3 times as many berries.

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subdood: your Triple Crown berries possibly show symptoms of Red Berry Mite, that causes individual or clusters of drupelets to remain red, hard, and tart. If those red areas are soft, then perhaps just heat damage.

OR-- if you took them out of the fridge, they may have reddish areas.

Thanks. I think it’s the heat, we’ve had unusually hot weather (for us) the last couple of weeks. Plus, those might’ve been picked a bit early, so not all the druplets had turned yet. Some of them were a bit too firm and sour, so I’ve become a bit more careful to make sure the berries are a bit more softer before picking. It’s great to go down there and pick a handful of home grown berries.

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Yes common in every type of blackberry. It is fairly normal to see some. Ponca the new one is supposed to have less of this happen. I have never seen one immune from this.
On Ponca Clark said. “Red drupelet reversion is low, similar to Osage and less than Natchez”

I’ve noticed there are some white drupelets on some of the berries, too, but it’s more rare than the red ones. My wife picked about another quart this morning of mostly Triple Crown, and some wild berries, she’s planning on canning them. So far we’ve picked about 4 quarts of TC.

We froze a quart the last batch we picked, and she made a blackberry cheesecake with what was left of the first batch.

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The haul has stayed good so far on the black raspberries. I cooked a few pounds and we’ve been eating them for breakfast.
The past 3 days pick was mixed with some haskap from the freezer, cooked and strained. The jelly is tasty, but not really setting. 7 jars. I’m freezing it since I’ve found black raspberry flavour doesn’t survive the full canning. Drambuie is working as an accent for them.
I think we’re on the start of their wind-down so another 1-2 batches of regular freezer jam over the next week should do it.

We’re getting trickle of yellow raspberries. Just enough for one good serving a day. The rain hit just in time to save them. I’ve also killed my first 2 Japanese beetles on them.
The fall red raspberries are looking hard hit due to the drought. We’ll see.

The kiwi were really damaged by the late frost but still have a few berries set. Those seem bigger than usual too.

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Yes, blackberries and blueberries can keep going most of the summer. I got rid of my mid to late blackberries and only grow early. I do have all my stone fruit yet, and blueberries go till the end of August here. I have early, mid and late ripeners. two have yet to ripen.
Toro is ripening like crazy now

Cara’s Choice has been ripening for a week now

Chandler is ripening it’s biggest first berries now too. This one will go on another month. Legacy too.

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I may have lost my new little Joan J raspberry plant to the high heat today. It’s been in the mid 70s for a good week with rain, then today it jumped to 95 blue skies. Most of the leaves are crispy, with one that was dropping at sun set when I got home. Considering I just got it a few weeks ago, prob really was my fault for being too eager to get new plants. I’ll wait till it cools down before replacing it or just getting a bare root next spring.

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That’s amazing productivity, Drew! How do you irrigate them? Rain water or do you adjust the pH of the city water? If its the latter, what’s your setup? Add vinegar or other acids?

I use rainwater. If in a pinch I will use city water. Once in awhile won’t hurt them. Mostly when i don’t have much time I use city water. It takes a bit longer to water with the rain. I do keep enough on hand, I won’t run out.

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raspberries are pretty tough. keep it watered and i bet it will send up new shoots from the roots.

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