I just wanted to take a moment to give Nourse Farms a plug. Even thouth Josephine was not one of the varieties I planted, absolutely everything I received from them were good plants that did amazingly well. That’s saying something since I live in an area where raspberry crops are not considered possible because of our high summer heat and humidity, along with our lack of steady winter chill. The Jaclyn, Nantahalla, and Prelude varieties that I planted this spring not only fruited decently their first summer, they are continuing to produce enough to satisfy my daily berry wishes with increasingly better berries even now, in mid-December. Lauren made lots of large berries in the summer, but is not bearing into fall. These babies were grown in almost continuous shade and survived a brutally hot, long summer that had little rain. And they’ve been real troopers putting up with the continuously wet, and sometimes flooded, ground for the past three months.
All the raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries that I received from Nourse did very well. The only difficulty I had was an extremely delayed shipment of everbearing strawberry varieties that was due to deep snow accumulations which greatly delayed digging in their production fields. Those arrived quite late for planting in the south, but they lived, produced more plants, and are currently ripening a good sized crop.
I give Nourse high ratings for shipping quality plants.
I agree. Everything I’ve ordered from them has been healthy, well packaged, and has come with specific and helpful guides. They also sell their berries in local stores since they’re only about 2 hrs away from me. Great gooseberries.
Indiana Berry no-longer offers free shipping on orders under $25, Ordered from Nourse this season instead, as they had similar varieties at better prices.
Caroline is the best tasting red raspberry that I have tried. Unfortunately, SWD caused me to remove this variety and concentrate on Summer bearing varieties. I now grow Cascade Delight, Tulameen, and Nova - red varieties. Heritage did not like my clay soil so it was removed…the flavor on that variety was also lacking.
Somebody sent me a sucker last year, and I would agree with thecityman for the most part, This is an exceptional raspberry. And is going to be the basis for anymore I breed. I like breeding raspberries for fun.
For what its worth, I noticed last year that several Tractor Supply stores in my area had Josephine Raspberries for sale for $7.99.
About all can add is that my Josephines were once again the biggest and best tasting of all my raspberries. These really are wonderful- it wasn’t a one year fluke!
I ordered a Josephine from Pense Berry Farm. I’ve never ordered from them before but they were recommended on this forum. I don’t know if they were running a special but there wasn’t any shipping on my order.
Hope it’s ok to add onto this somewhat old thread, but I was curious if anyone knows a good source for Josephine, or if it has been found to be undesirable recently? I can hardly find it for sale anywhere online, and for instance the most recent reply by Anne suggested Pense berry farm, but they don’t sell it anymore it looks like. It appears Park Seed used to but doesn’t anymore. I’m just confused as to why, if this is such a good berry, it’s not more widely available…
I thought Nourse sells them, but after looking at their site, apparently not. I recall them selling Josephine last year. It’s odd nobody seems to be selling them now.
If anyone in the Washington DC area wants some, I’m going to be taking some out to make room for more blackberries. Pulling a jewel black raspberry as well.
Ya, I was kind of hoping to avoid amazon and ebay. Not what I’d consider reliable sources. And I definitely don’t need them in bulk. The sourcing is problematic, but beyond that I figured if people have stopped selling them despite their apparent good flavor, there mus be a reason?
I read somewhere someone said that they’re apparently a dark berry, which makes them unattractive commercially? But there’s usually still a home market in such cases. The Josephine patent even expired last year from what I can tell, so I’d think it’d be even cheaper to sell them. Wish I’d sprung on them last year.
Not sure? I grow lot’s of fruit that one doesn’t see and I think it’s great! Like White D pineberries. One of the most easiest strawberries to grow. The largest pineberry one can find. No where in sight?? Wyeberries are like a larger and earlier boysenberry (which are all over). Yet not one vendor sells it. Probably the best white fleshed peach is Old Mixon Free. No nurseries sell it. I’m not sure why this happens? The growers of stock might have reasons to stop. Also we do lose some wholesale growers from time to time and often have unique cultivars. Kiwi Gold is another raspberry that is a great yellow, and it’s very hard to find. Kiwi Gold is a sport of Heritage. I think the best tasting yellows is Cascade Gold, not easy to find that is for sure.
I think it is particularly true that varieties that aren’t a good choice commercially (color too dark, fruit too soft, etc.) but are great for home growers can disappear from vendors if they aren’t getting enough orders to make it worth keeping. And there are always new varieties coming out that get a buzz going, so they need to decide what to drop to make room for the new.
I’ve been trying to track down a cowpea developed in the USDA and released in 2006. It sounded great, had a lot of advantages and did very well in trials. But for whatever reason growers didn’t pick it up and it has basically disappeared.
I sent Nourse an email asking them why they’re no longer selling Josephine. I have their 2019 catalog, and it was in that issue, so it’s odd why they (and other vendors) just dropped it. It seemed to have got good reviews from growers, a very good tasting, large berry.
I read about it on its patent page and it says it having a “tougher skin and more cohesive than that of the standard cultivars”, which sounds like it’d be an ideal shipping berry. Maybe the source of the variety, if there was just one, had their crop destroyed or depleted for some reason? As @redram said, the patent expired, but in 2018.
I did get a response today from Nourse, here is their reply-
"Hi Bob,
Thanks for reaching out with your questions. We stopped carrying Josephine as it fruited too late for many of our customers. It is a very nice variety with good fruit but it just didn’t sell enough for us to keep it. I hope this information helps and please let me know if you have any other questions.”
So that’s that. I guess if one wants any Josephine plants, they’ll have to get some from cuttings from other folks.
Thats too bad, it is my favorite raspberry variety.
There is a berry seller at the local farmers market and he is also really into Josephine, it is nice to see some commercial growers also appreciate the variety.