I have 24 haskaps, over half are 7 years old or so. I’m not sure about variatals since all but one were end-of-season. almost dead freebies from our local garden centre. (I’m southern Ontario, zone 5-5b)
We’ve really only had some production in the prior 2 years. I like the taste, but we use them for cooking, not fresh eating due to the tartness. Cooked, they have lovely, complex flavour that is unique but almost a mix of blueberry, raspberry and a good red wine. We love them in pancakes, crumbles, pies and muffins. (we recently found a muffin recipe that calls for blueberries and candied ginger that I can’t wait to use them in!)
We’ve had increased bird loss as they increase in production and this will be the first year we’ll net them. (Some Cedar Waxwings keep bringing more friends and clean us out) I do pick earlier than most are suggesting here, both because they will never survive the birds and we are fine with them being less sweet since they are for cooking.
For us, part of their value lies in providing a super early food source for our pollinators. They are always covered in the bumble queens and other bees and give what looks good food at a point when daffodils are about all that’s on offer. They are also in an area of the garden with extremely poor soil and they have had pretty much no care or feeding so getting decent looking shrubs that also provide such a tasty and early cooking berry makes them worth keeping around.
These sound just like ours. Fresh, if they are allowed to hang a long time after turning full color, they are pretty good but nothing I get excited about. I think raspberry is probably the closest. But the texture isn’t as good, and by that point they needed to be netted or you are only getting the few that the robins overlooked.
Cooked, I’ve only done jam so far, they are one of the very best. The flavors change, enhance - very berry. The color is gorgeous, they don’t require pectin. Delicious.
That sounds good, can you point to it or post it? Or tell me where you found it?
I grow blueberries too, but they are best for fresh eating. I want to add some for cooking one of these days. Most I have are sweet. But yeah for honeyberries. I got my wife hooked on honeyberries and black currants last season. She never tried them before. She was intrigued and loved the black currants. I was surprised at that. I make a syrup, and go from there. She had the raw syrup vr ice cream and said it was the best she ever tasted. You can make leather with the syrup too. I use it mostly for cordials. I made a syrup of yellow raspberries and made fruit leather, wow! Excellent!
For the first time, I am using a solar powered bird alarm. whenever it detects motion, it lets off an eagle call. my dog attacks the contraption every time it alarms. I hope it works.
It came out of a book called “Grocery Gardening”.
6 tbsp melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1 1/2 cup blueberries
350 oven Mix the wet and dry separately then combine and fold in berries. Cook for 25 mins.
I used a chai spice mix instead of cinnamon. It can also take more fruit. I was planning on going with 2 cups of haskap.
All of my Haskaps have flowered and fruited at this point. Beast, Beauty and Blizzard all overlap in my orchard. First year, sometimes Haskaps/Honeyberries do strange things. Half my orchard flowered first year, other half did not. I think its just a matter of plants being too young to fruit well.
I think some may find this interesting. I was given a preview of Logie’s Honeyberry guide to share. Also he has offered to make his full guide available for free in PDF form if you send him a request to logie@lovehoneyberry.com. Its a fairly impressive book, with over 330 pages of pictures and information. He will also be releasing an updated version for next year, current version was created in 2016. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ilxVliK2vmennPiA2j5ylsGbHN4Hixgz/view?usp=drivesdk
Thanks to the info here, I’m netting the haskap patch today. I hadn’t realized how long the fruit can hang so would pick as they turned. Now that I know they can sit, I’m getting them undercover before the cedar waxwing gang can even show up!
There is a large fruit set so I’m pretty excited and hopeful for the haul. Waiting for enough to make muffins will be tough.
I have four honeyberries, all two years old now i believe. They are giving me a large handful each day. It’s hard to have enough to do any baking with when you have three ravenous children, they’ve all been eaten fresh so far.
As for flavor, when picked right after they turn blueish purple, they make my kids’ faces squint with the sourness, but they eat them anyways. Someday when they move out I’ll be able to taste them at peak ripeness I get so excited to see berries that I don’t have the heart to tell them to wait.
I have one Maxie Japanese haskap. Bought it with a Solo for pollination but Solo died. Maxie bloomed at the same time as Aurora, and has set fruit. I had been under the impression the Japanese varieties needed another Japanese variety to pollinate but that doesn’t appear true.
I had four cups worth from basically two plants but a couple came from three others. I made a blueberry pie with 3/4 cup of sugar. It was strange because some pieces were delicious and others were bitter. The good ones were kind of like a blueberry but not that strong. It’s really a taste of its own. The thing I really liked was how much fruit came off of these little bushes. When they get big they will really produce lots of fruit. My favorite bush is one of the indigo bushes. It’s the largest berry and the sweetest. It’s also my second smallest bush though so it has some growing to do. This would be the bush to spread around for me, but it’s only sixteen inches tall with new growth! It’s in the more shady area of the bunch. I did draw and name the bushes on paper. I’ll have to look for it. There is one big berry on top of this bowl that came from this plant.
I finished the picking today. Netting made a huge difference in both the amounts and the size/flavour of the berries. The cedar waxwings were quite ticked off about being denied. I had one about 2’ feet in front of me while picking this afternoon.
Our total haul was somewhere around 16 pounds so about 2-4 pounds each from the older bushes.
I modified a recipe and got mini loaves of a lemon berry cake that we’re happy with.
Also did a trial run on using them in smoothies and they do work very well. The skins are very soft so they purée completely.
Tomorrow I’m doing a berry custard pie for a wine tasting so I can get some more general opinions on their flavour.
Next year I hope to have a dehydrator so trying to dry them will be on the list.
I have several of the newer, supposedly sweeter varieties bearing for the first time this year. To tell the truth, there isn’t much difference in flavor in most of them. They get much huger berries than I expected in their new location.
This is the first year where I have had both a) sufficient production and b) sustained bird netting to have a good tasting. Last year my kids moved the netting to mow the grass and by the time I noticed the next morning 95% of the berries were gone. They are often said to have a raspberry/blueberry kind of taste. I don’t taste any raspberry. They have blueberry colour and similar texture at one point, but I think they have to be softer than a blue berry to be fully ripe. This year I have harvested indigo gem, aurora, and Borealis. There is a significant tartness to these berries, both initially and as an aftertaste. So I can’t say I love the taste, but I am still grazing aggressively. There is no other home grown fruit I can eat right now so I will be keeping these bushes.
They look a little under ripe @tonyOmahaz5. Wait until they are super blue, no red tinge and nearly squish when you pick them. They’ll be far less tart
I get so excited to see berries that I don’t have the heart to tell them to wait.
