Berry plant and harvest report 2019

Whenever I make any fruit preserves that don’t set well or firm up (not enough pectin, too much water, not cooked long enough, etc), I just tell everyone I made it as syrup for pancakes and ice cream! ha. Or I call it “freezer preserves” and keep it in the freezer. :slight_smile: Yours sure looks good to me though.

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Ate some very ripe gooseberries. Excellent. Like grapes and kiwi. I might need to multiple my plants a little more. They do really well in a slightly shaded spot/west facing.

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It is a lovely sauce! I had planned on keeping it as a “freezer” jam anyway. Last year I did a proper can on some of them and a good chunk of the flavour didn’t survive the process. At least I found a home for the 5 jars so far!

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I’ve still got several pounds of haskap in the freezer so I can give that a try on the next batch. Thanks for the info!

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Yes it does ruin so many things. I never had problems with jam, but cucumbers and peppers are terrible processed correctly. So I just refrigerate when done canning them.

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Birds are starting to take my elderberries just as soon as they begin to turn. So I’m trying these 5 gallon paint strainer bags to protect some of the heads. Hope it works.

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I haven’t had any PAF berries yet, so I can’t say TC are my absolute favorite just yet. But, they are very good, like I said, more juicy and sweeter and ‘grapey’ than Ouachita. Of the small sample of Osage we got, I think are my second fave. My PAF primocanes are setting fruit now, so we’ll get to compare them to the others.

I tipped my TC primocanes at 4ft this year, and they have suckered like crazy, so next year ought to be a big crop. But, I’m going go have to come up with some netting as birds have been picking my canes almost clean, very frustrating.

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Truth be told, I started growing fruit because I love fruit muddled into mojitos. This handful of Prelude raspberries will make a few.

I also grow mint for the same reason. Poor little guy can hardly keep up. I learned the hard way at my previous house why you should only grow mint in a pot. Im sure the folk who bought the place are still trying to get rid of it :rofl:

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My wife and I were talking and decided that this year’s blackberry harvest has been the most successfully epic harvest of anything we’ve grown so far. It has been over a month of as many blackberries we can pick. Daily blackberries for breakfast, multiple bags of frozen blackberries, three cobblers, fruit salad, smoothies. They are still going, though they are starting to slow down.

I fertilized them this year, which I had not done in the past. They also got two inches of compost and a layer of woodchips. I have two sections of them, both about 15 to 20 feet long. They are very healthy looking and take minimal care. Love it.

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That’s great! How are you avoiding the SWD?

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ummm, probably not avoiding them all together. They are there and I’m sure we eat some. I have sprayed spinosad twice to try and keep the levels down. Unlike the raspberries, the blackberries don’t go to mush if they are infected. They all look and taste fine so no one asks any questions.

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got 2.5 gallons of b. currants off my 2 consorts. the biggest crop yet from them. so far made 7 pints of jam and still have more to process. mixed in some raspberries half and half with 3 of them. its fabulous!

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small but steady trickle of berries. Double gold and Fall gold are getting sweeter everytime I pick them. I am not too impressed with Monterey Strawberries though. I will remove them from the bed by the end of this season anyway.




Growing a bunch of golden berries from seed this year. Debating if I should plant them in the ground now or wait until next spring

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I read that misshapen strawberries are a sign of low boron level in the soil, so I put a tiny bit of 20-Mule Team Borax on my bed. What a difference it made! Huge, perfectly formed berries after that. It only takes a little borax, though. Overdo and you can kill the plants.

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How much is “a little” and too much?

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Good question. I just sprinkled a little about with a spoon. Also did some 10-10-10. The leaves all turned brown and crispy, and I thought I had killed them. But they resprouted into huge dark green plants that produced prolifically. So start very lightly.

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Surprisingly I have been harvesting Black Raspberries from Primocane fruit. It still has tons more. To the right is the 7 foot main cane, one of 2 the plant has. The other is 5 foot. To the left is a lateral branch with fruit forming on the tip.One of several laterals.

A close up of the lateral

This plant is a cross between Jewel and Niwot. I grew out about five plants. Three I scraped for various reasons, poor taste, weak growth etc. but this one grows well and produces very well. (another is still under evaluation) It had only one floricane this year (it is a young plant), yet produced ton’s of fairly large berries. A harvest from that floricane on 07-15-19. Of note too, is look how uniform the berry size is.

Interesting the primocane fruiting was passed on. The berries are better than Niwot. Still not as good as the summer floricane crop. Those berries were fantastic. I have yet to name it? So far it is a keeper. See how it does in the future. The plant shown is 2nd leaf this year (first harvest).

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Love slightly underripe, still firm double gold

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I picked 6.5 lbs of Aronia off of 3 bushes. There were a few lbs left when I was done.

I juiced them in a steam juicer, got 1/2 gallon.



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Looks like a great way to process large amounts. I hope to process that many black currants. With the amount of plants I have I should once mature.

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