Opinions wanted: Favorite raspberry varieties?

Caroline! I have four different rasps. And Caroline outshines them all! its taste is very raspberry! It has a small early summer crop and a large mid summer into October crop!

Its possible i love all raspberries but i very much enjoy Heritage, Anne, Caroline, Joan J and Fall Gold all are very hardy and seem to do well here and taste excellent. The yellows are left alone by animals although the fall golds eventually color enough to get hit

1 Like

:slight_smile:

I do eat them all together, and also keep some separate. Like most black raspberries are kept together. I like to mix berries in a more controlled manner… But sometimes my time is limited, so they go together. This winter I made a smoothie with Indian Free peach and Musk strawberries. Wow! I have not found a good way to consume frozen musk strawberries, I found it! Although I can only drink so many smoothies. Most of the berries are made into a syrup from the juice. I do strain some pulp too. So it’s thick as is, not really just juice. I sweeten a touch etc. And consume as a cordial ,mostly, also on ice cream. Black currant syrup is my favorite, but raspberry is awesome too. Those Prelude raspberries make the best raspberry syrup. Well my syrup is mixed sometimes I have also made yellow raspberry syrup. You can use the syrup to make fruit leather too.
I sweeten a little more, pour on parchment paper, dry in my dehydrator (you can use an oven). Cut into strips leaving the paper, and roll them up so you have fruit roll ups.
I also like the berries in oatmeal the steel cut
Raspberries frozen dipped into dipping chocolate and put on parchment paper. This is wickedly good! I use Ghirardelli Dark melting wafers. The chocolate stays liquid enough even after many rounds of frozen berries. Easy to work with and it tastes fantastic. A secret to using other baking chocolate is to add a touch of olive oil to keep it liquid enough to coat fruit. No need for this at all with the melting wafers.
I do make 2 small rounds of jam most years and give away most of it.
I found some really good fruit combinations for jam. Blackberries and blueberries, Tayberries and wyeberries. also Blackberries and kiwi, mulberries and black raspberries is amazing stuff. Also a yellow raspberry jam is novel yet delicious. It has a creamy texture to it. Add 1/4 to a 1/3 cup of lime or lemon juice to maintain color.Often yellows turn brown, even with acid, but yellow raspberries stay yellow with acid from lime. You could use powdered citric acid too.White gold cherries turn brown in a NY minute. Frozen White gold turns to a very bad looking brown, even with acid. Pineberries stay white, but turn in jams quickly. Frozen they stay white and look OK. Frozen pineberries dipped in chocolate should be against the law, way too good!

Got strawberries?

Some big ones here!

Something to give to the neighbors.

13 Likes

i have 3 kinds of white alpine in the greenhouse. just put out 40 mara des bois in the bed and have 25 pineberry plants coming from harttmanns. :wink: i like your recipes!

1 Like

i also got 25 ACWendy coming to replace my earliglow. heard good things about them.

I have struggled to keep raspberries alive for years but there is at least one or two I have tried that have worked better than others. Cascade Delight has been the best variety for me…both for surviving wet clay soil and also for longevity. I have a replanting doing well this year, planted last year, and it took -6F this last winter without any damage.

I’m also trying two new varieties this year: Cascade Harvest (summer bearing) and Josephine (primocane bearing). For me, it’s not only picking the right variety but also spending extra time making sure the planting beds are properly prepared. I use raised beds, mix in plenty of sphagnum peat moss and good garden soil into my clay soil. Additionally, I will use Hollytone as my fertilizer and then a bit of the sulfur additive I use for blueberries. That helps lower the pH a bit and that seems to help the raspberries start of strong. A lot of trial and error, but I think things are working well not for my raspberries.

Beside the three varieties of red raspberries, I have Jewel black raspberries and Brandywine purple raspberries planted.

If you have not had the chance to read this publication, it provides a nice review of a number of raspberry varieties…most of which grow well through the US.

Raspberry Cultivars for the Pacific Northwest - Oregon State University

2 Likes

What happened to your EG’s? Were they played out? My EG produce a very good tasting, sweet berry, maybe the best imo. Mine are already producing a few ripe ones, it’s hard to not go out there and pick a few red ones, even though they’re still not totally ripe.

1 Like

My rasps have struggled, too, compared to my blackberries. The patch the rasps are in drains very well, and I also gave them some Hollytone. They’ve seemed to have responded well, but they’re not nearly as big as my blackberries. But, I don’t expect them to be, either.

The pH of the soil the rasps are in is about 6.0, is that ok for them? I have some nitrogen fertilizer (27-0-0) with sulfur in it. I don’t think they need more fert now, but would that be ok to use later, or is it too much N?

Speaking of winter hardiness, my Nova canes seemed to make it through the best, Prelude did pretty well, Killarney and Eden weren’t as good. Anne and Fall Gold did ok, but have really pushed up a lot of new canes.

My Freedom blackberry floricanes were mostly killed, but have sprouted a bunch of primocanes. Traveler, Ouachita and Triple Crown did very well, mostly survived, but Osage had quite a bit of dieback. All but TC are either setting buds or starting to bloom now.

2 Likes

I had a similar experience this year in regards to hardiness. We got down to -8 F this winter, at the coldest point(not including windchill). The canes on Nova and Heritage made it through winter nicely, with only a little die-back. Prelude did well but did have several canes die back about 1/3. Caroline died back by about half. It seems like the smaller canes did better than the larger ones. All of my Annes died back close to the ground. They are all growing well at this point though.

1 Like

That’s been my experience with Anne as well here in Minnesota. Great berries, but the least cold hardy of my 8 or 9 raspberry cultivars

2 Likes

My Prelude floricanes are about 3ft long, but aren’t as lush with leaves or thick as Nova. They have fruit buds, but not as much as Nova.

I have Caroline also and it wasn’t a very vigorous grower, it just put up a few thin canes, which are leafing out now, but I doubt will produce much fruit. It has suckered pretty well, so we’ll see how this year’s canes do.

We also have Bristol and Mac Black, and they survived the winter. But they didn’t really grow a lot of canes last year, so not too vigorous. They have sprouted a few new canes, but aren’t as prolific as my yellow varieties, but that’a probably to be expected.

2 Likes

My Carolines are crazy, my most vigorous rasps. They don’t get too tall, kinda like Anne, but they sucker profusely and will quickly turn into a thicket.

I’d like to try more summer-bearing only varieties to avoid SWD. I was hoping to prune the ever-bearers so that they produce a bigger summer crop and less fall crop but it looks like that won’t happen with Anne.

1 Like

they were very good but they are played out so i decided to give AC Wendy a try. they are going to have big pants to fill as earliglow was a great tasting berry! if you liked earliglow, try sparkle. is a later bearing heirloom of medium size. but flavor is similar maybe better than eariglow. was the most planted commercial berry here 25 yrs ago. many home gardeners still grow it and consider it the best tasting. my father had a patch.

2 Likes

surprising that the eden had damage. the canadian nurseries call them z3 hardy.

my annes were unscathed but were constantly under about 8ft. of snow all winter. we didnt get real cold last winter either. got to about -25f.

1 Like

Yes, it is. I considered Sparkle because of it’s later bearing, but went with Jewel instead, plus J is a larger berry. With 25 new Flavorfest, we ought to be swimming in strawbs the next few years. I’m loving the fact that I can walk into my backyard and pick a handful of them now that they’re starting to ripen.

Yeah, I think it’s more of a soil problem and not the cold. They were planted two years ago, and barely made it then along with Anne. All the other rasps I planted didn’t make it. I’ve since improved the site a bit, and now have 9 varieties growing.

Eden had a couple longish (2-3ft) canes from last year, but just hasn’t been too vigorous. But, at least it’s sending up a few new better looking canes. I gave the whole patch a dose of Hollytone and it seems to be helping.

1 Like

What is this one? Tayberry?
image

1 Like

@Drew51 I have had 5 perfectly ripe Wyeberry in the past couple of weeks and also had tayberries to compare. The wyeberries have more of a “twang” to them and are very complex and delicious. I can’t wait to have enough to make a jam from them. Thank you!!!

2 Likes

Triple Crown dipped in chocolate is divine. My all time favorite jam, at this point, is tayberry / strawberry (Cavendish)

2 Likes

Yes I think so! I now have a 2nd tayberry plant that is supposed to have even bigger berries. Time will tell if the same or different.

I’m also excited to have a large crop of Irene this year, my own cultivar. It keeps showing signs of being a winner. It is outproducing most of my other cultivars. This is a raspberry that is pink in color. It’s cool as it is orange for awhile, and when fully ripe takes on a pink color.

Yes wyeberries have an acid bite, and I could not really tell them from Boysen except that they were bigger ripen a week earlier and had more resistance to the cold here.

My favorite yellow raspberry is Cascade Gold, it’s different than most yellows as it is not a translucent yellow, but a solid yellow color. The taste is amazing even when not fully ripe
A very firm berry makes for an excellent feel in the mouth. One problem is it is marginal here. many canes are damaged in the winter. So I crossed it with Kiwi Gold which is a sport of Heritage. The resulting plant is growing now, I named it Andrea. It has a gold fruit, but I only got two of them. I moved the plant from a container to in ground. I won’t get many fruit this year as the sole floricane it had was damaged in the transplant. It is growing new primocanes. Next year will be the first year I get a decent crop.

1 Like