Best way I describe astringency is, swish your mouth with alcohol Listerine, spit it out. That dry mouth feeling afterwards is astringency.
4 Likes
That is interesting! All 3 ripen at the exact same time at my location. They just started a few days ago. I do have all of mine grafted to autumn olives though.
3 Likes
Can confirm my Sweet Scarlet has big nasty thorns too.
2 Likes
My go-to example is green banana. Everybody knows what green banana is like. That’s astringent.
7 Likes
I never noticed green banana being astringent, but now that you mention it, yeah!
2 Likes
Yes, I don’t like bananas green, and I don’t like them brown. I think the standard grocery store bananas have about 2 days where i find them edible, and that may just be the last five hours of day one and the first five hours of day two. The ones that started out organic usually last a bit longer. Definitely checks the astrigent box.
I thought I’d have more time, but the birds watched me harvest goumi berries one day and they’ve just about stripped the bush now. They didn’t know what they were last year and ignored them all. This year was aimed toward at least two gallons and I may have garnered a quart. They started with Moniz and quickly shifted to Carmine (Tillamook). They left me hopeful for Red Gem until my first harvest and now they grab them as soon as they start to shift from orange to red. I guess I start the caging/netting techniques sooner than I expected. I’ll buy out the dollar stores rubber snakes too, perhaps.
2 Likes
The only way to go. My goumi berries are still green but the nets go over them today. Same for the Gerardi mulberries. Once the goumi berries and mulberries are picked, I’ll move the nets to my figs.
3 Likes
I see this as a plus to protect against some of the critters, but I don’t mind sharing. I can’t eat them all anyway.
@Mtncj I’m with you on the bananas. I like them best in banana bread and banana ice cream.
Regarding using fake snakes, I bought some very realistic-looking ones from Amazon last spring and put them in my blueberry shrub while the berries were still green. Dang birds still took every berry while they were still green and with the snakes in the bush. I hope your birds are less brave than mine were if you try the snakes.
The one thing I did manage to do was scare myself and make myself slightly queasy every time I went by the blueberry bush. I am NOT a snake lover, but I know they are beneficial and don’t kill them. I do scream loudly though when I see one!
Sandra
3 Likes
Yep. Astringent. Lol.
1 Like
Scare tape is the ticket. Noticed the birds hitting my blueberry bush hard this year because I cut down my illinois everbearing mulberry due to popcorn. Scare tape went up and bird damage went to virtually nill.
7 Likes
@SoMtHomestead I am so glad you mentioned scare tape. I bought some last year and forgot all about. Will have to dig it out and use it. Thanks!
Sandra
2 Likes
I’d need ascare tape that was extemely and safely biodegradable as it is so windy here that I’d be replacing it pretty much every week. I used langer strips of it woken into a temporary fence as part of a deer strategy. While the winds ensured it did its job while it remained attached, it didn’t take long until it was gracing the properties of my neighbors in all directions. Every time I know down brambles in a wild corner of my yard, I find more of it that they helped keep from blowing quite so far away. I may try some very short lengths on some of what is ripening next.
2 Likes
Scare tape / flash tape… worked for me short term… they eventually got used to it and ignored it.
I have not even put it out the last couple years.
Bagging the clusters works well… but putting on a couple hundred organza bags takes some time… and then when you harvest… you have to take it off and put it back on again. A real pain.
I am still looking for the best solution for me.
TNHunter
4 Likes
My Tilamook fruited for the first time this year (planted last spring). They were not bad. I did not notice much astringency and otherwise they were a bit sweet and a bit tart (the astringency was barely noticeable for me while I ate them but after eating I registered some lingering astringency though mild). I intentionally harvested these soon after they turned red to see how they were. I have heard that it is best to let them ripen a week or two after this stage to get fully sweet, so I’ll do another harvest in a week to see if there is any change. Interestingly, my sweet scarlet was targeted way more by the animals and though it had set a good amount of fruit little is left on the plant and I don’t think any were allowed to fully turn red. I covered a branch of Tilamook with insect netting which is what allowed me to get these fully red berries but even the uncovered branches of Tilamook have a lot of semi ripe berries so there clearly was a difference in animal preference. Next year, I will put more effort into netting the plants.
9 Likes
I made frames from 3/4" PVC, 5’ cubes. I use one per plant, then cover with bird netting. That has worked well. Except yesterday when the wind was so strong that it blew the frames and netting off the plants. I had to reassemble the covers while birds bombarded the ripe fruit from all sides.
But now it’s all good. I’ll have to decide whether to pick all at once or in waves.
Edit: Here’s a pair of pix.
8 Likes
@jrd51 … I have my tifblue protected now and we pick them a couple times a week and that works well. Getting some very good berries.
I used tposts and garden stakes to make the frame. My bushes are 6-7 ft tall.
TNHunter
5 Likes
Awesome. That looks very similar, probably cheaper. And bigger!
I figured that I might have a problem as the bushes get taller. Maybe it’s just a question of pruning. I’ve got 6 bushes planted ~6’ apart.
1 Like
Wanted to share my two cents regarding berry size. I saw on your, @Mtncj, picture red gem to be dramatically smaller than sweet scarlet, and I noted @TNHunter’s post elsewhere that his RG was bigger than SS. Last year, my experience was similar to yours, @Mtncj – my RG was much smaller than SS, and not just berries but leaves as well (see my post from last year for the pic: Goumi bush degradation?). I almost decided to remove the RG as far inferior but my wife convinced me to try to cut it back to try to rejuvenate it. So we did, and this year the RG had good-size leaves and fantastic berries, actually slightly larger than SS. See the two pics below, the one showing 15g per 10 berries is RG and the one showing 13g per 10 berries is SS. So on average, RG berry was 1.5g vs SS berry at 1.3g. Sounds like the berry size is dependent on the various conditions more than on the inherent cultivar characteristics…
5 Likes
