Jewel here has had good black-cap flavor over the past 25 years regardless of wet or dry spring weather. If dry, I watered more. I have never tasted a blueberry-like black-cap.
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Hoping for better flavor from my Jewel raspberry this year. Also had next to no flavor last (2nd) year. If it doesn’t produce good fruit this year, I’m probably going to give it away.
My Jewel (sourced from Pense in 2019) have been pretty consistent and good. More or less identical taste to the “wild” native ones which grow like weeds around here, albeit close to triple their size. I have them in a spot which gets very little direct sunlight but they don’t seem to mind.
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Taste is subjective… other reports of Jewel having no flavor… so its possible to some… could be many factors. I noted pruning a couple of years ago… so that could be a factor with mine tasting good to me this year… i pruned very hard to 3 canes per crown and cut below the top wire as well as all laterals to 2 foot… and i still have too many for myself and neighbors. Will prune harder next year.
For anyone interested, I saw at Stark Bros. they have a three pack of Caroline red raspberry bare root plants for $8.99 and free shipping with a guarantee to grow.
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Boyne raspberry that’s been growing here since 2021. It’s a good producer and a healthy plant, but I don’t love the flavor. I’ll keep it for freezer berries, because it makes great jam, but I’m still looking for that special raspberry for fresh eating. I might have found it. I gave my Dad a Willamette plant last year for Father’s Day. I tried a berry from it the other day and it tasted like the berries from the neighbor’s plant growing up that made me fall in love with raspberries. I haven’t found raspberries quite like them since. I’ll try and get a plant from his when they start spreading, or just buy one. I also planted a heritage and a Caroline that I found at local plant sales, so we’ll see how those stack up.
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speaking of Caroline, mine is surviving the Texas heat!
so far it looks like I’ll probably lose Heritage, Double Gold, and Fall gold (they’re looking very sad right now)
but the Caroline are still going strong! looking forward to having my first taste
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Posted earlier about some mislabeled raspberries. Seems that was not true. Those never grew and the patch was taken over by wild black raspberry. Walking around the property I noticed they were everywhere. The ones in full sun have some really tasty fruit. Have plenty of wild black berry as well and it’s nice to see good things invade instead of super invasive wineberry.
Hi, I am wondering if some ‘Jewel’ plants sold are clones of the original and some are seedlings that have inferiour fruit. I grew ‘Jewel’ from seed and the fruit was big but had a terrible flavour.
Walked past the blackberry patch yesterday when mowing the grass and saw the Triple Crown bare root plant I planted this spring flowering. Didn’t realize at the time of planting that there was some growth from the previous year. It was a nice surprise.
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Just got my order in from Berries Unlimited, and the two that are supposed to be Prime Ark Horizon have tags that say “Heritage Red”… sigh.
I think there is a chance they may actually be horizon though, there is a berry forming at the tip of the primocane, and also there are very tiny thorns spaced very far apart on the cane - both of which fit with what horizon is supposed to be
@krismoriah what do you think, could these be horizon?
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also got this thorny monster, looks more vicious than Kiowa almost. No tag on it but I’m assuming it’s the Lawton
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The tags might be inside the pot in between the soil and pot. That’s how all of mine were this year from BU.
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Prime Ark Horizon has sparse thorns… and PA45 has very dense thorns…
So i would say yes it looks correct.
Yes looks like Lawton. Nice big berries but very very late here… may fruit for you earlier in your climate.
Picked these black raspberries today. There’s a thicket of them down by our barn. They’ve been there a couple years and produce decent sized berries. The canes are very long and thorny.
The berries are larger and tastier than the two domestic blackcap varieties I have. There are other stands of these wild berries around the farm, but this one is the biggest.
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tip root some to plant in your yard. 
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FYI the local home depot here is selling Vigoro branded Twilight Blackberry
Also, I dug up some old posts about Allen black raspberry, is it that much better than jewel, black hawk, cumberland, bristol/munger that I should order one?
I have dug up a black raspberry that I found growing by a bridge. Part of it was hit by weed killer, but it appears to be recovering. One of the primocanes is flowering, and I am wondering if it is perhaps a sport. I will try to air layer the one that is flowering on the primocane. It was basically growing on rocks and has good flavor. If it continues to flower from primocanes, I want to cross it with Joan J. I would like to then self-cross an offspring to make a thornless primocane black cap.
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I’ll take it back. My Jewel black raspberry is now producing fruit for the 2nd year. Much better flavor than I remember last year, even with all the seeds.
I noticed that on some laterals the center berry is maturing but the three or four berries around it appeared to have dried up. Is this simply a watering issue or did I over-crop by tipping and leaving six canes after late winter pruning? There are few videos I have seen from black raspberry growers where they strictly limit the number of canes to as few as three with the explanation of improving berry size and fruit quality.
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