ive mentioned this before on here in the past. if you want a very good older cultivar that ripens later, try the heirloom sparkle. its very popular up here and most u picks still grow it . it ripens mid /late july and thats why its tastes so good as its usually pretty dry and hot that time . i put it taste wise with mara des bois but the berries are a little bigger and its more productive. next time i renovate my beds ill be growing them again. berries are very dark red to near purple when dead ripe.
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Collards, kale, Lawson Dawson mulberries, and serviceberries.
Put a gallon and a half of serviceberries in the freezer 2 days ago, need to pick again today.
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Nice going…you must have enough for yourself and the birds both!
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At this moment, anyway…the winged rats here at the house are more interested in the mulberries than the serviceberries. Most years, the birds eat the entire crop in one day.
A week or so back, I went to the nearby elementary school where the kids and I had planted some really productive apple serviceberries about 20 years ago…ground underneath was littered with seeds, hardly any berries left. No mulberries anywhere close to divert their attention.
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i have a 15ft can. saskatoon thats growing in my screen of spruces and mostly shaded. i bent it down out into the light and tied and staked it there in april. its growing like crazy and has put on more flowers than it ever has. sprayed it with immunox. have a 2ft. tall apple serviceberry and northline. the northline flowered already in its 1st year. birds / squirrels dont touch them here.
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Went out to pick this afternoon, birds were hammering the serviceberries.
Picked another gallon, but at the rate the birds ate hitting them, there won’t be a berry left by nightfall tomorrow.
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@clarkinks
June 1, 2021, I ate this Parker pear harvested last year about Aug 13, 2020. Not melting but good. Ate it crisp. Stored in ziplocks in a crisper. Some of them have gone bad over this long time.
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PrimeArk Freedom
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@growjimgrow… love that pic.
I used to have a little girl, now she is all grown up and married - turned 24 last week.
When she was 2… I planted a 50 ft bed of ozark beauties’ and some other big june bearing strawberry that Gurney’s had. It turned out to be the best strawberry bed I have ever had and produced so many nice berries for 3-4 years. I had so much fun taking my daughter out to the strawberry bed and watching her pick and eat all she could. She loved snow and snap peas too…
Anyway your cute little girl with the strawberries too me back about 20 years. Love it.
TNHunter
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i have similar memories at my place and my fathers. my daughters 23 and is pregnant. i look forward to spending time with my grandson / daughter. 
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Thanks TNHunter for the story.
Much the same, I planted 50 feet of two different strawberries two years ago, I forget what kinds. I have three girls 9, 7, and that picture is my 4 year old. We went out and picked those berries right before the picture. They rummage through the berry patch and eat as many as they want right from the plant. Watching my kids do this is the great pleasure of my life. We also have been enjoying snap peas, asparagus, dinosaur kale and broccoli from the garden, all of which they will happily eat. They will eat all these veggies. Shelling peas will be soon.
Last year my oldest said she liked the Romaine lettuce I grew so this year I planted a whole bunch. She tells me the other day, “no daddy, this isn’t the Romaine lettuce I like. I like the one with the white parts.” She wants the heads of lettuce, not just the outer leaves. My wife and I joke that our spoiled kids are going to have no idea how to eat once they leave the house.
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We don’t have kids, but we are still enjoying strawberries! They have just started coming on strong.
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Aside from green onions these Carmine Jewell are the first thing I’ve eaten that I’ve grown this year. Obviously not ripe yet but I picked a few that were a little darker than the others. They are surprisingly small. Smaller than I expected. Flavor wasn’t great considering they still need to hang longer. The cherries on Juliet are behind CJ by probably a week or so.
For whatever reason my CJ lacks the thick dense folliage that my Juliet has.
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