I’ve got 6 honeyberries…All of them are are 2 feet tall or greater and the bloom overlaps well…
I am lucky if each plant gives me 20 berries. Some gave less than 10.
The furthest plants are only 30 feet apart from another (they are planted in 2 groups)
i’m almost to the point that I want to get out the paint brush and start pollenating myself…
Scott
My most disappointing fruits are nectarine (cut down after 10 years and 2 fruit ripened (combination of squirrels and poor fruit set), plums (poor fruit set), Honeycrisp apple (8 years old, flowers for 6 of those years and 0 fruit set with 5 other apple trees (some with 3-4 varieties) in the yard (1/8th acre). Crimson Passion (cut down last year, it got every disease possible and never ripened fruit).
I consider honeyberries somewhat like pie cherries, not that great fresh, but wonderful cooked… They are great in oat bran or oatmeal, which add them to and nuke together with some sugar or stevia and serve with milk. I think they would go well in any cherry recipe, plus require no pitting.
Definitely not figs. Figs have been great here. Apples, pears, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, mulberries all do fine. The Asian NA persimmon. Ichi Ki Kei Jiro has been fine.
Apricots have proved impossible, due to disease.
Sweet cherries and most plums have proved impossible, due to disease (black knot).
The American persimmon Prok has been productive but disappointing – bland tasting and persistently astringent.
All the hate for figs here is interesting. I’m in rainy Seattle, my figs are productive and splitting is hardly an issue If you choose the right varieties like we are forced to do over here for pretty much everything we grow.
McIntosh and Cortland apple…they need to be sprayed constantly to get a clean apple…we still haven’t had a decent crop after a decade plus in the ground. Also…standard sized apple tree rootstock…don’t do it.
My Jostaberry was a complete waste of time for me. I wonder if there are productive ones out there because the fruit wasn’t bad. I like the growth structure as well but the lack of fruit was frustrating.
@etheth32992 … i tried 2 jostaberry here 4 years… got 3 or 4 berries.
They had aweful foliage issues and would loose most leaves by mid summer… they could not grow or thrive or make any progress here. I think perhaps too hot and humid.
Going to try clove currants next… i hear they may do better with heat and humidity.
Yeah, bitter gourd lives up to its name. The first time I had it, I was concerned that I’d been poisoned. I think its an acquired taste, plus some people genetically have different sensitivities to bitter compounds.
I suppose if I were to begin this thread, I would have asked, “What is the most disappointing fruit you grew?” I would put it in past tense since those that fail are replaced at the next opportunity.
I have been really dashed to conclude I cannot raise russet apples in my near-desert conditions. Hunt in its debut offering blew me away with its flavor and complexity. But never again, with each succeeding summer worse & making both my russets (Rosemary is the other) yield tiny balls of wood.
The shame of it is that Hunt & Rosemary are so easy to raise in every other way. Rosemary in particular is perhaps the most grateful apple tree to grow: nice vigor, big leaf surface, perfect scaffolding with the merest attention from my pruning hook, pink bloom has high fertility, frost tolerance & mid season, a spur bearer.
The second tier of frustration & grief involved growing sour cherries. So many things on paper made them seem the right choice: natural semi-dwarves, self-fertility & higher Brix than sweet cherries. Earlier hot weather brings on the fruit flies, which I could not deter with several strategies. English Morello is perhaps last of all cherries to ripen, so the maggot pressure was terrible. North Star needed a mulched zone free of turf or weeds much wider than the drip line. First indication it was stressed at all was canker all over the lowest crotch; couldn’t believe how fast it progressed.
Once I get through the blues then begin looking for alternatives. Plums are working nicely for stone fruits. At least the first one, Ersinger, is, by its third leaf in this yard. My first dormant bud graft was Mt. Royal onto Mariana 2624 for friends. Kirke’s is due in a matter of weeks. (Will let you know how it plays.)
Kirke’s will go near Ersinger, close to where Connell Red apple has been standing. Hunt & Rosemary will be replaced with Otterson & Sundance, respectively. Last of all, I will remove Bardsey & put the one Lost Apple Project recovery Dave B. gave me to graft next to its root ball: Shackleford.
Sure glad I learned to graft, since most replacements I have made myself. Exceptions are both plums from Raintree (on St. Julian A) & Sundance from Orange Pippin.com.
@FarmGirl-Z6A … i had two bushes… and yanked them both after year 4.
My hope with honeyberry was for a berry that tasted good and was my earliest ripening fruit.
When you have nothing else ripening… good taste would be high enough to set the bar.
Well the varieties I selected… were not really early… i had ripe strawberries and goumi weeks before my HB ripened. They tasted much better than the HB too.
The other big problem I saw with HB is that they turn blue… start looking ripe… but you have to let them stay on the bush for a week or more… before they actually ripen up enough to taste good.
I tried that… but while I had the patience for that… my birds did not. They ate them up quickly after turning blue.
Not sure if I actually got to taste one that had been hanging there blue for a week or more… every time i checked them most of the ones i has seen a few days earlier were gone… or pecked to death.
They were just disappointing in several ways.
I have plenty of space here… and may try HB again some day… some of the newer varieties others here have had good luck with.
I have read that HB is supposed to be the earliest ripening fruit as well, but I don’t know where. It certainly is not my earliest in zone 6a. I get strawberries weeks before they ripen too.
while looking for alternative secret fruit plants, i found cornus kousa.
of course some shops praised it as aromatic fruit plant.
but then I tried some and they were just bland.