Is Joan J an early producer? I’m assuming you keep the floricanes?
Only my second year growing raspberries and i kind of regret not keeping some floricanes from last year. I’m growing Caroline, Fall Gold and Royalty.
@moose71 you’re a true raspberry enthusiast! I only have Prelude, Joan J, Nova, Polka, and just added Eden this year. The Eden sticks are trying to flower so I might get to sample those. Joan J is a tad less acidic than Preludes I got to try so far. They taste better than the ones at the grocery store, but that can be said about a lot of fruit!
@dimitri_7a Joan J is supposed to ripen floricanes with Nova but it’s ahead of Prelude in my yard this year. I’ve only had Joan J for 3 years, and planted the other 2 varieties last year. Things may change in the future as the plantings further mature. I couldn’t bear cutting down the floricanes and it paid off big time this year! Didn’t really expect this many floricane berries since last year’s yield was pretty scant.
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I think deciding whether or not to cut the floricanes depends a lot on the variety. Prelude puts out the most fruit for me on floricanes, but my Josephines look like they only put out a few berries on floricanes, so they might be better managed just for primocane fruit.
The other big consideration is how bad spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is in your area. Last year they were pretty bad in my primocane berries. This makes my floricane crop the priority since they ripen before SWD show up.
no swd up here yet but it will eventually. the reason I’m starting to grow some summer bearing varieties. nice to know some everbearers put out a decent florocane crop. up tiil last season i would mow them down after the primocane crop. this spring i left 20 canes standing of my autumn britten and jacylns. canes are over 6ft tall. should see some florocane flowers soon.
all the raspberries we get in the stores here come from mexico! can’t even compare them to ANY type raspberry grown locally. and they charge $4 a 1/2 pt for that garbage!! i freeze as many as i can on cookie sheets then put them in ziplocks. with what I’m growing i usually have enough until the next summer.
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Since it still is on the warm side, I’d make jam and get it over with! They look delish!
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Pink Panda is really for flowers, but I get a few berries off mine too.
I had two recently.
Pineberries taste good any stage of ripe.
Here are some garden strawberries near blueberries still ripening. Looks like this 2nd year I will get full sized blueberries to try.
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Is that all from your Joan J? How big is the bed?
Minaj Smyriou Black Currant does a good job of hiding a lot of the berries under leaves. Looks like a good crop as usual from this variety. The others I grow just suffer too much from our heat to put on enough growth and really produce, but Minaj does great.
The chipmunks were kind enough to leave me some Hinnomaki Red gooseberries, but they destroyed the yellows.
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Yes, mostly Joan J so far except for the few strawberries and what’s in the blue box. Those are Prelude. I have perhaps two 8 foot patches of Joan J and a 12 foot patch of Prelude and Nova. There are fewer numbers of a couple other varieties as well but those haven’t contributed to the harvest yet this year.
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i just planted 3 tiben i got as cuttings this spring . they are already 16in. tall. 2 went in the ground and 1 tiben and a consort went in 20gal fab. pots. i now have 16 black currants . 6 cultivars. many will be fruiting for the 1st time this summer.
just noticed my 5ft. romeo cherry i just put in ground last week is full of blossoms! don’t think any will develop fruit but I’m hoping i at least get a taste!
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Awesome harvest. I might have asked before, but how old are your rasps, and how many did you plant of each? Have the birds been after them much?
I have one each of nine different varieties, four summer reds, two summer blacks, two fall golds and one fall red. All but two were planted last year, the other two in '17.
While my floricane harvest (barring varmit/bird theft) will be maybe a quart total, I’m very encouraged by the new bigger canes that have come up this spring, and a bigger fall harvest. And of course I’m excited about our blackberry crop this year too. Just impatient waiting for them to ripen before other things find them.
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Hi there Bob. 1 patch of Joan J was planted in 2017 (10 plants), my 2nd one I planted in 2018 (10 plants). I also added Nova (5 plants), and Prelude (10 plants) in 2018. AAC Eden was just added this year (10 plants), and is already trying to flower on the old canes. There are also random quantities of Polka and Anne scattered about. They all came from Nourse, which is why the quantities are that way. I really don’t know how many plants I have as of now. They are always sending up new canes.
The birds peck at some, but don’t take very many at all compared to strawberries. There are some wild/feral mulberries on both my neighbors’ properties ripening fruit right now, so that might be distracting them. They did go and eat all my goumi berries, but those weren’t very exciting compared to raspberries. Catbirds absolutely massacre my blackberries though. They peck at all the fruit and leave it to rot. They don’t even bother eating half the berry!
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the only time I’ve had problems with birds eating my cane fruit is when a cane droops close to the ground. trellised they don’t touch them
Strawberry report:
So the water finally drained off as the berries were ripening, and I’m at peak strawberry now, despite the considerable amount of rot. Got a 5-gallon bucketfull today, of which 80% is Earliglow
I think if I could only grow one berry it would have to be EG, it is SO very vigorous. Last year I had to re-do my entire patch, and I bought 10 EG plants from the local nursery, just in case the others didn’t produce, which in fact they didn’t. EG grew and spread and spread and grew, til I ended up with a 24-ft double row, now producing.
Of my other berries, I think I’m going to take out Rutgers Scarlet and replace with Yambu. Really happy with Yambu, nice big sweet heart-shaped fruits. Only thing is, it turns out to be earlier than I’d figured, bearing right alongside EG, which I don’t really need. Would be nice to have a berry that starts to ripen when EG fades.
Would also be nice to find a fungicide effective on botrytis, which Captan doesn’t seem to have discouraged.
Need to decide on strategy by July
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It works good for me, but it has to be in acidic water else it won’t work at all.
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I use vinegar
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Maybe different strains? it is very effective here.I only spray about once every 3 years.