Oh wow, those are HUGE! I hope I get fruit that large from my Beauty in a few years. Thanks for sharing.
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supposedly individual berries weighed up to 7g!
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did it say what cultivar? my Aurora are that long but not close to that wide! damn thats what im talking about! what facebook group?
those are ‘beauty’
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awesome! i just put in beauty and beast this spring. got blizzard coming in sept./ oct. up to 12 honeyberries now. probably put in more. besides cane fruit/ ribes they are one of the easiest fruit to grow here. now i know why theres such a push to improve these fruit for mass production.
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The collection is coming to an end and I managed more than three hundred shrubs with this tool:
I’m still waiting for Aurora to ripen. The harvest was very good than expected and I haven’t had such a season in a long time.
Here’s how to collect it:
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Very cool Viktor! Is that tool a custom design? It looks to me like a reciprocating saw with the custom fabricated pipe piece attached to a blade.
These are 1/2 "plastic water pipes, which I simply welded. We call it a tail saw. It’s a quick and cheap solution. Plastic pipes have a low weight and are more suitable than metal. Without that tool, I can’t imagine the collection. .
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That is an awesome tool. Do you have instructions on how to make it?
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It’s very simple and therefore no instructions are needed. The principle with iron bars is available on the Internet. I did it from plastic water pipes and every worker dealing with water pipes will do it very quickly. then just combine it with the battery. saw and strengthen it with a guide rail.
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This is a blue mist I got from OGW two years ago. It started falling over so I tied it up to the fence with some twine. I believe there was a whole “blue” series that was released, but it doesn’t seem to be that popular. I’m hoping to get some berries this year before the birds eat them all. I really like honeyberries, but my wife thinks vinegarberries would be a better name.
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A few days ago, I picked up Aurora on some bushes. The harvest was extremely high. I let it ripen properly on some shrubs. Once fully matured, it now tastes great.
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just finished the last of mine. Aurora is such a heavy producer of nice big berries. its my favorite cultivar so far.
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Aurora is the queen of these plants.
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Honeyberries were a bust for me this year. I didn’t pay close attention but I think they got confused by some wonky mid-atlantic weather and attempted to bloom too early. All Japanese and Japanese/Russian genetics.
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My honey berry season just finished here in Zone 5a Southern Vermont, and I thought I should write up a small report. I planted single plants of 20 different varieties 3 years ago. All plants have survived and now range from 2.5 to 3.5 feet tall (~1m), but with some more vigorous than others. This is the first year that I’ve got enough berries to bother putting up the bird nets — which are definitely necessary!
Harvest season started mid-June, and finished the first week of July. It was a mild winter, a relatively dry spring, then got fairly hot for the area in June (max around 85F/30C), then back to cooler and rainy. I think I got 2-8 cups per plant (.5L-2L) this year. I won’t try to give quantities per variety, since I think a lot of the variation in productivity was just chance at this point. And I missed most of the production of the earliest varieties because I didn’t get the bird nets up early enough. Did I remember to mention that you’ll need bird nets?
Anyway, here are some short first-impressions about eating them direct from the bush from me and my wife, with the earlier varieties first. We picked in four stages, based on ripeness. I didn’t manage to do any systematic testing of differences in cooked berries, although to a first approximation all have been good.
Blue Banana: Tangy, tasty, but maybe an odd tomato-like flavor.
Happy Giant: Somewhat bitter, not large enough to justify the name.
Blue Moose: Half-bitter with a nice flavor underneath.
Tundra: Tart-sweet, nice but a little plain.
Indigo Gem: Pleasant and sweet.
Indigo Treat: Good, sweet, interesting. Uneven ripening?
Honeybee: Simple and pleasant.
Borealis: Good, with some berries excellent.
Aurora: Excellent, with very large berries.
Sugar Mountain Blue: Tart but not bitter. Smaller difficult to pick berries as they are hidden under the leaves.
Berry Blue: Smaller, nice starting flavor but bitter finish.
Boreal Blizzard: Very good, big berries, mild.
Boreal Beauty: Good, mild, similar to Blizzard.
Boreal Beast: Excellent.
Solo: Nice, simple, not bitter.
Maxie: Large, sour, gummy, not bitter.
Kawai: Decent, but tend to fall off before fully ripe.
Tana: Pleasant, similar to Solo.
Keiko: Pleasant and sweet.
Strawberry Sensation: Excellent underlying flavor (which as advertised includes strawberry!) but a little too much bitterness for me raw.
Overall, we really enjoyed eating them fresh with shortcake and whipped cream, and we’re glad that we have a small supply in the freezer for future baking. Dessert sauce cooked with sugar was great. A “flognarde aux camerises” came out delicious, and we’re looking forward to more. Not sure if I’ll make a small batch of jam this year or reserve the frozen berries for baking.
More generally, I was surprised that the taste differences between the varieties were not as large as I had expected. Other than texture and degree of bitterness, most were quite similar once they were fully ripe. I’d assumed I’d find one or two favorites based solely on flavor, but I’m now realizing that other characteristics like berry size, ease of picking, and even ripening might be equally important. I do need to figure out a better method for letting them ripen fully without dropping onto the ground when it gets windy.
Generally, the Japanese origin plants from Maxine Thompson’s line seem like the healthier plants here, and I’m pleasantly surprised that their flavors seem comparable to the USask line. The occasional dried berries of all types are great, and I’ll probably intentionally dry more next year. The Berries Unlimited plants are generally a little more bitter, but maybe this will be fine for cooked usage. Strawberry Sensation is indeed a very promising flavor.
Overall, I’m happy with the experiment so far, and looking forward to future years when I have (hopefully) have more berries than I’ll know what to deal with. I’ve got a few more young plants that I put in this year (Maxine’s Opus, Honey Bunch/Kaido, Sugar Pie/Hoka), and I’m hoping to add some of Sophia Łukaszewska’s Polish varieties next spring. And I’d love to find a US source for some of the other European and Russian varieties that Viktor has been mentioning.
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Honeyberries go through a profound transformation when cooked with sugar. Really excellent.
May I ask what they charged for U-pick berries?
My planting came through the 116 degree weather remarkably well, relatively unscathed, including the ripening fruit. In fact, I think it improved the sweetness and flavor. I was surprised.
Unfortunately, it was way too hot for it to be worth my while to pick them. I have enjoyed browsing them fresh though later. In past years I didn’t really enjoy them fresh.
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$4/lb if you bring your own containers. 
And I would agree about the cooking with sugar. The honeyberry custard pie was very good.
nkurz, thank you for that run down. That’s very helpful for those of us looking to plant some. I’d wondered about Strawberry Sensation.
I’d also be interested in keeping up to date with where to source different varieties, so I hope folks keep sharing that info.
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(Is that like $ 2 per pound if you count berries eaten as you pick?
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I’ve read online that honeyberries can do well in partial shade. Does anybody have them in a mostly shaded area and still have them do well?